Controllino: A repository from DimitrisSar

Manage your Controllino v1

Be sure to ⭐ this repo so you can keep up to date on any daily progress!

Disclaimer: Proceed with caution!

Using the information contained within this repository to modify your device will lead to warranty violation !
The responsibility lies entirely with you if you damage/destroy your device or cause any other trouble. The purpose of this collection is to share information about managing your Controllino v1 device and not to cheat the Helium Network. No configuration found here will help you increase your mining rewards. This depends entirely on your hotspot placement and antenna installation.

Hardware | Open Chassis | Backup SD & Enable SSH | P2P Variables | Chain Sync | Stats | Scripts | Hints & Tips

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Hardware Used
Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB	Transcend 420T	Embit LoRa

\|<-- Add some blah-blah about the Hardware -->\| FCC Approval for EMBLR1302: https://fccid.io/Z7HEMBLR1302 Possibly add links to some external content Raspberry Pi 4 Getting Started Make your own Gateway

Open Chassis
T15 Torx bit	5mm Hex Female bit	M2.5 Hex Spacers	General Tools

To open the Controllino v1 Chassis, follow the steps below: Step 1) Unscrew the first 4 top T15 Torx screws using the Torx screwdriver bit. You may sheer off the bottom part of the screw of the top threaded pillar. Step 2) Open the top cover and remove IPX antenna connector and the LoRa mPCIe card. Lift the power connector from its socket Step 3) Gently remove the LoRa hat (lift slowly from both sides) Step 4) Using the 5mm Hex Female bit, secure the M2.5 15mm Spacers and unscrew the bottom screws. Do not use pliers to hold the spacers because they may slip and damage the rPi board Step 5) Remove the rPi and take out the SD Card Step 6) Replace broken standoffs with new ones Pictures

Backup SD & enable SSH
micro SD Card Reader	Win32 Disk Imager	ext4 Mount Util	Windows PC

To backup the contents of your SD Card, follow the steps below: Step 1) Connect your SD Card to your Windows PC using a micro SD Card reader Step 2) Download Win32 Disk Imager and install it Step 3) Choose a location to store the image file and select "Read" to initiate the backup Step 4) Create and place a blank file named ssh (no file extension) onto the boot partition of the SD Card Step 5) Download and install Paragon ExtFS trial edition and install it Step 6) Mount the ext4 partition and create a folder .ssh in directory /home/pi/ Step 7) Create a text file authorized_keys (no file extension) within directory /home/pi/.ssh/ and place your public ssh key inside. See useful links below for more details on how to setup SSH keys Step 8) Unmount the SD Card, place it back into the Controllino v1 and power up the hotspot Step 9) Use any SSH client to authenticate with username: pi using Public Key method Useful Links How to Back Up a Raspberry Pi SD Card in Windows How to Setup Raspberry Pi SSH Keys Enabling the SSH Server (headless setup) Headless Raspberry Pi

P2P Peer Book Size Increase

Based on the work of: https://github.com/inigoflores/

"What is P2P and P2P peer book?" Glad you asked!

P2P: Helium is using an extended version of the libP2P system which part of IPFS. It is used as a network layer by the peers to communicate with each other directly as equal participants.

Peer Book: Think of it as a DNS server. It is stored locally on your miner in a RocksDB and holds the combination of the peerid and ipv4 address with tcp port (default: 44158) of the hotspots. It has a limited size, so it can't hold all the addresses (620k+).

Notes:

If the hotspot is relayed, it forms a "bridge" with another not relayed hotspot and you have a: p2p-circuit. To reach the hotspot that is relayed, you need to communicate with its not relayed circuit peer.
There are 40 seed nodes deployed by Helium that act as the Global DNS Servers for the network. If your hotspot cannot find the peerid in your local peerbook, it will query the seed nodes. They are the first entities on the network that each node connects to in order to find out about the other nodes they could connect to and are an important glue for the network.

P2P Communications are used for several purposes by the miner. This will change when HIP55 will be fully implemented and the new light hotspots will emerge.

Until then, you can try to increase the parameters for P2P comms to see if you get less warnings & errors of the following type:

/var/log/console.log:

2022-03-02 11:25:18.707 8 [warning] <0.23459.1>@miner_onion_server:send_witness:
{243,37} failed to dial challenger "/p2p/<hotspot_id>": not_found"

/var/log/error.log:

2022-03-02 11:26:47.667 [error] <0.23303.1>@miner_onion_server:send_witness:
{207,5} failed to send witness, max retry

To modify the P2P parameters, follow the steps below:

Step 1) Take a backup of your existing config file

root@controllinohotspot:~# cd /home/pi/docker_config/
root@controllinohotspot:/home/pi/docker_config# cp docker.config docker.config.old

Step 2) Edit /home/pi/docker_config/docker.config using the text editor of your choise (i.e. vim, nano, etc)

root@controllinohotspot:~# vi /home/pi/docker_config/docker.config

Step 3) Add the following 3 new options in the section blockchain of the config file:

     {peerbook_update_interval, 900000},
     {max_inbound_connections, 50},
     {outbound_gossip_connections, 10}

Careful when adding these options to fix the commas on the existing ones otherwise the miner will not start. Save the file and exit the editor.

Important Note: The config file will be overwitten when the miner is upgraded to a new release or when you perform Clear Miner Data from the Controllino Dashboard. You will have to redo the changes in /home/pi/docker_config/docker.config following the miner update/clear.

Complete docker.config file

Step 4) Restart miner

root@controllinohotspot:~# docker restart miner

Step 5) Check new Peer Book info:

root@controllinohotspot:~# docker exec miner miner peer book -s
root@controllinohotspot:~# docker exec miner miner peer book -c

Options:
  -s, --self
    Display the peerbook entry for this node.
  -c, --count
    Display the count of all peerbook entries for this node.

You can also refresh the peer book entry and ping the peer with:

root@controllinohotspot:~# docker exec miner miner peer refresh /p2p/<peerid>
root@controllinohotspot:~# docker exec miner miner peer ping /p2p/<peerid>

docker exec miner miner peer commands:

  peer listen            - Display the addresses this node is listening on.
  peer session           - Display the nodes this node is connected to.
  peer ping              - Ping the peer over an established or new session.
  peer connect           - Connnect this node to another node.
  peer disconnect        - Disconnect from a connected peer.
  peer addr              - Display the p2p address of this node.
  peer book              - Display information from the peerbook of this node.
  peer gossip_peers      - Display gossip peers of this node.
  peer refresh           - Request an updated peerbook for this peer from our gossip peers.
  peer relay_reset       - Stop the current libp2p relay swarm and retry.
  peer sync              - Connect to given peer and attempt to sync blocks.
  peer fastforward       - Connect to given peer and attempt to deliver blocks rapidly.

Useful Info

Basic Miner Operation

Challenger Not Found Peerbook Size Increase Fix

Helium Miner Logs Analyzer

Default Helium Miner Config

Real-time performance statistics

Using Netdata monitoring agent, we will collect thousands of metrics from our Controllino v1 system (hardware, containers, and applications) with zero configuration.

Because it's free, open-source, and requires only 1% CPU utilization to collect thousands of metrics every second, Netdata is a superb single-node monitoring tool.

To install the netdata agent on your Controllino v1, follow the steps below:

Step 1) (optional) Update your Rasbpian packages to the latest versions

root@controllinohotspot:~# apt update && apt upgrade

Step 2) Install Netdata, including all dependencies, disable telemetry, and get automatic stable updates

root@controllinohotspot:~# wget -O /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh \
https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh \
--stable-channel --disable-telemetry

Step 3) Modify the netdata agent config file (/etc/netdata/netdata.conf) parameter "bind to =" (from 127.0.0.1 to 0.0.0.0) to allow remote connections:

[global]
    run as user = netdata

    # the default database size - 1 hour
    history = 3600

    # some defaults to run netdata with least priority
    process scheduling policy = idle
    OOM score = 1000

[web]
    web files owner = root
    web files group = netdata

    # by default do not expose the netdata port
    bind to = 0.0.0.0

Step 4) Enable the netdata service for auto-startup

root@controllinohotspot:~# systemctl enable netdata

Step 5) Access the local netdata dashboard to see your node's real-time metrics by browsing to http://NODE:19999, replacing NODE with the IP address of your Controllino

Enjoy the metrics!

Multiple Nodes: You can use Netdata Cloud to have a single view of all your Controllinos running the netdata agent. You can customize key metrics from any number of Controllino monitored nodes and seamlessly navigate to any node’s dashboard for granular performance troubleshooting.

Useful Info

Official Netdata Installation Guide

Official Netdata Configuration Guide

Build new dashboards

Configure health alarms

Export metrics to external time-series databases

Tips & Tricks
Controllino Dashboard v.1.2	Tip 2	Tip 3	Tip 4

Comon Troubleshoting Steps / Notes / Tips ○ If miner height is stuck and not increasing: 1) Clear Miner Data + 2) Instasync Hotspot ○ Dashboard version cannot be updated manually. If you have an older version, contact Controllino support @ https://hotspot.controllino.com/support/ and provide your hotspot name & MAC Address ○ The hotspot checks automatically every 10 minutes the following: 1) Disk Usage: If it grows above 90%, it will perform both Clear Miner Data & Instasync operations 2) LoRa Packet Forwarder: If service is not active, it will restart it and the miner ○ Check the Discord Server @ https://discord.gg/z8kxkgMn44 for more hints & tips and community support

Notable Software on my Laptop:

Debian 11 - It all starts here
Docker - Docker
XShell 7 - The industry’s most powerful SSH client
Netdata - Infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting

Todo List

The issues section on github is where I store all my wishful ideas and future enhancements. Feel free to join the conversations there.

Still have questions?

Join us at the Controllino Discord :

You can buy me a coffee

or donate some HNT :)

DimitrisSar/Controllino

Manage your Controllino v1

Hardware | Open Chassis | Backup SD & Enable SSH | P2P Variables | Chain Sync | Stats | Scripts | Hints & Tips