WORK IN PROGRESS - ETA: December 25th, 2022

Gupax is a (Windows|macOS|Linux) GUI for mining Monero on P2Pool, using XMRig.

To see a 3-minute video on how to download and run Gupax: click here.

Contents

• What is Monero/P2Pool/XMRig/Gupax?
• How-To
• Simple
  • Gupax
  • P2Pool
  • XMRig
• Advanced
  • Verifying
  • Command Line
  • Resolution
  • Tor/Arti
  • Logs
  • Disk
  • Swapping P2Pool/XMRig
  • Gupax
  • P2Pool
  • XMRig
• Connections
• Community Monero Nodes
• Build
  • General Info
  • Linux
  • macOS
  • Windows
• FAQ
  • Where are updates downloaded from?
  • Can I quit mid-update?
  • Bundled vs Standalone
  • How much memory does Gupax use?
  • How is sudo handled? (on macOS/Linux)
  • Why does Gupax need to be Admin? (on Windows)

What is Monero/P2Pool/XMRig/Gupax?

Monero is a secure, private, and untraceable cryptocurrency.

The Monero GUI software lets you run a Monero node (among other things). A Monero node connects you to other peers and lets you download Monero's blockchain.

More info here.

---

P2Pool is software that lets you create/join decentralized peer-to-peer Monero mining pools.

P2Pool as a concept was first developed for Bitcoin but was never fully realized due to many limitations. These limitations were fixed when SChernykh rewrote P2Pool from scratch for Monero. P2Pool combines the best of solo mining and traditional pool mining:

• It's decentralized: There's no central server that can be shutdown or pool admin that controls your hashrate
• It's permissionless: It's peer-to-peer so there's no one to decide who can and cannot mine on the pool
• It's trustless: Funds are never in custody, all pool blocks pay out to miners directly and immediately
• 0% transaction fee, 0 payout fee, immediate ~0.0003 XMR minimum payout

More info here.

---

XMRig is an optimized miner which mines Monero at higher speeds.

Both Monero and P2Pool have built in miners but XMRig is quite faster than both of them. Due to issues like anti-virus flagging, it is not feasible to integrate XMRig directly into Monero or P2Pool, however, XMRig is still freely available for anyone to download with the caveat being: you have to set it up yourself.

More info here.

---

Gupax is a GUI that helps with configuring, updating, and managing P2Pool & XMRig (both originally CLI-only).

Recap:

1. XMRig mines to P2Pool which fetchs blocks from a Monero node
2. Monero GUI runs the Monero node
3. Gupax runs P2Pool/XMRig

By default, though, Gupax will use a Community Monero Node so you don't even have to run your own full Monero node to start mining on P2Pool:

How-To

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/101352116/207978455-6ffdc0cc-204c-4594-9a2f-e10c505745bc.mp4

1. Download the bundled version of Gupax for your OS here or from gupax.io
2. Extract somewhere (Desktop, Documents, etc)
3. Launch Gupax
4. Input your Monero address in the [P2Pool] tab
5. Select a Community Monero Node that you trust
6. Start P2Pool
7. Start XMRig

You are now mining to your own instance of P2Pool, welcome to the world of decentralized peer-to-peer mining!

Notes:

• What is bundled? What is standalone?
• If you'd like to get deeper into the settings, see Advanced.

Simple

Gupax

---

P2Pool

---

XMRig

Advanced

Verifying

It is recommended to verify the hash and PGP signature of the download before using Gupax.

Download the SHA256SUM file, download and import my PGP key, and verify:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUM
gpg --import hinto-janaiyo.asc
gpg --verify SHA256SUM

Q: How can I be sure the P2Pool/XMRig bundled with Gupax hasn't been tampered with?
A: Verify the hash.

You can always compare the hash of the P2Pool/XMRig bundled with Gupax with the official hashes found here:

• https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool/releases
• https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig/releases

Make sure the version you are comparing against is correct. If they match, you can be sure they are the exact same. Verifying the PGP signature is also recommended:

• P2Pool - SChernykh.asc
• XMRig - xmrig.asc

---

Command Line

Gupax comes with some command line options:

USAGE: ./gupax [--flag]

    --help         Print this help message
    --version      Print version and build info
    --state        Print Gupax state
    --nodes        Print the manual node list
    --no-startup   Disable all auto-startup settings for this instance
    --reset-state  Reset all Gupax state (your settings)
    --reset-nodes  Reset the manual node list in the [P2Pool] tab
    --reset-pools  Reset the manual pool list in the [XMRig] tab
    --reset-all    Reset the state, the manual node list, and the manual pool list
    --ferris       Print an extremely cute crab

By default, Gupax has auto-update & auto-ping enabled. This can only be turned off in the GUI which causes a chicken-and-egg problem. To get around this, start Gupax with --no-startup. This will disable all auto features for that instance.

---

Resolution

The default resolution of Gupax is 1280x960 which is a 4:3 aspect ratio.

This can be changed by dragging the corner of the window itself or by using the resolution sliders in the Gupax Advanced tab. After a resolution change, Gupax will fade-in/out of black and will take a second to resize all the UI elements to scale correctly to the new resolution.

If you have changed your OS's pixel scaling, you may need to resize Gupax to see all UI correctly.

The minimum window size is: 640x480
The maximum window size is: 2560x1920
Fullscreen mode can also be entered by pressing F11.

---

Tor/Arti

By default, Gupax updates via Tor. In particular, it uses Arti, the official Rust implementation of Tor.

Instead of bootstrapping onto the Tor network every time, Arti saves state/cache about the Tor network (circuits, guards, etc) for later reuse onto the disk:

State:

OS	Data Folder
Windows	C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\torproject\Arti\data
macOS	/Users/USER/Library/Application Support/org.torproject.Arti
Linux	/home/USER/.local/share/arti

Cache:

OS	Data Folder
Windows	C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\torproject\Arti\cache
macOS	/Users/USER/Library/Caches/org.torproject.Arti
Linux	/home/USER/.cache/arti

---

Disk

Long-term state is saved onto the disk in the "OS data folder", using the TOML format. If not found, default files will be created.

Given a slightly corrupted state.toml file, Gupax will attempt to merge it with a new default one. This will most likely happen if the internal data structure of state.toml is changed in the future (e.g removing an outdated setting). The node/pool database cannot be merged.

If Gupax can't read/write to disk at all, or if there are any other big issues, it will show an un-recoverable error screen.

OS	Data Folder	Example
Windows	{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}	C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\Gupax
macOS	$HOME/Library/Application Support	/Users/USER/Library/Application Support/Gupax
Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share	/home/USER/.local/share/gupax

The current files saved to disk:

• state.toml Gupax state/settings
• node.toml The manual node database used for P2Pool advanced
• pool.toml The manual pool database used for XMRig advanced

---

Logs

Gupax has console logs that show with increasing detail, what exactly it is is doing.

There are multiple log filter levels but by default, INFO and above are enabled. To view more detailed console debug information, start Gupax with the environment variable RUST_LOG set to a log level like so:

RUST_LOG=(trace|debug|info|warn|error) ./gupax

For example:

RUST_LOG=debug ./gupax

In general:

• ERROR means something has gone wrong and that something will likely break
• WARN means something has gone wrong, but things will likely be fine
• INFO logs are general info about what Gupax (the GUI thread) is currently doing
• DEBUG logs are much more verbose and include what EVERY thread is doing (not just the main GUI thread)
• TRACE logs are insanely verbose and shows the logs of the libraries Gupax uses (HTTP connections, GUI polling, etc)

---

Swapping P2Pool/XMRig

If you downloaded Gupax standalone and want to use your own P2Pool/XMRig binaries and/or want to swap them, you can:

• Edit the PATH in Gupax Advanced to point at the new binaries
• Change the binary itself

By default, Gupax will look for P2Pool/XMRig in folders next to itself:

Windows:

Gupax\
├─ Gupax.exe
├─ P2Pool\
│  ├─ p2pool.exe
├─ XMRig\
   ├─ xmrig.exe

macOS (Gupax is packaged as an .app on macOS):

Gupax.app/Contents/MacOS/
├─ gupax
├─ p2pool/
│  ├─ p2pool
├─ xmrig/
   ├─ xmrig

Linux:

gupax/
├─ gupax
├─ p2pool/
│  ├─ p2pool
├─ xmrig/
   ├─ xmrig

Be warned: Gupax will use your custom PATH/binary and will replace them if you use Check for updates in the [Gupax] tab.

---

Gupax

---

P2Pool

---

XMRig

Connections

For transparency, here's all the connections Gupax makes:

Domain	Why	When	Where
https://github.com	Fetching metadata information on packages + download	[Gupax] tab -> Check for updates	update.rs
Community Monero Nodes	Connecting to with P2Pool, measuring ping latency	[P2Pool Simple] tab	node.rs
DNS	DNS connections will usually be handled by your OS (or whatever custom DNS setup you have). If using Tor, DNS requests for updates should be routed through the Tor network automatically	All of the above	All of the above

Community Monero Nodes

Name	IP/Domain	RPC Port	ZMQ Port
C3pool	node.c3pool.com	18081	18083
Cake	xmr-node.cakewallet.com	18081	18083
CakeEu	xmr-node-eu.cakewallet.com	18081	18083
CakeUk	xmr-node-uk.cakewallet.com	18081	18083
CakeUs	xmr-node-usa-east.cakewallet.com	18081	18083
Feather1	selsta1.featherwallet.net	18081	18083
Feather2	selsta2.featherwallet.net	18081	18083
MajesticBankIs	node.majesticbank.is	18089	18083
MajesticBankSu	node.majesticbank.su	18089	18083
Monerujo	nodex.monerujo.io	18081	18083
Plowsof1	node.monerodevs.org	18089	18084
Plowsof2	node2.monerodevs.org	18089	18084
Rino	node.community.rino.io	18081	18083
Seth	node.sethforprivacy.com	18089	18083
SupportXmr	node.supportxmr.com	18081	18083
SupportXmrIr	node.supportxmr.ir	18089	18083
XmrVsBeast	p2pmd.xmrvsbeast.com	18081	18083

Build

General Info

You need cargo, Rust's build tool and package manager.

The --release profile in Gupax is set to prefer code performance & small binary sizes over compilation speed (see Cargo.toml). Gupax itself (with all dependencies already built) takes around 1m30s to build (vs 10s on a normal --release) with a Ryzen 5950x.

---

Linux

You'll need the development versions of libraries like OpenSSL, SQLite, and maybe some other ones already installed on your system. Read the compiler errors to see which ones are missing from your system and search around to see which packages you'll need to install depending on your distro.

After that, run:

cargo build --release

---

macOS

You'll need Xcode.

On macOS, if you want the binary to have an icon, you must install cargo-bundle and compile with:

cargo bundle --release

This bundles Gupax into a Gupax.app, the way it comes in the pre-built tars for macOS.

---

Windows

You'll need Visual Studio.

There is a build.rs file in the repo solely for Windows-specific things:

1. It sets the icon in File Explorer
2. It statically links VCRUNTIME140.dll into Gupax (the binary will not be portable without this)

After installing the development tools, run:

cargo build --release

This will build Gupax with the MSVC toolchain (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc). This is the recommended method and is how the pre-compiled release binaries are built.

FAQ

Where are updates downloaded from?

The latest versions are downloaded using the GitHub API.

• Gupax https://github.com/hinto-janaiyo/gupax
• P2Pool https://github.com/SChernykh/p2pool
• XMRig https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig

GitHub's API blocks request that do not have an HTTP User-Agent header. For privacy, Gupax randomly uses a recent version of a Wget/Curl user-agent.

---

Can I quit mid-update?

If you started an update, you should let it finish. If the update has been stuck for a long time, it may be worth quitting Gupax. The worst that can happen is that your Gupax/P2Pool/XMRig binaries may be moved/deleted. Those can be easily redownloaded. Your actual Gupax user data (settings, custom nodes, pools, etc) is never touched.

Although Gupax uses a temporary folder (gupax_update_[A-Za-z0-9]) to store temporary downloaded files, there aren't measures in place to revert an upgrade once the file swapping has actually started. If you quit Gupax anytime before the Upgrading packages phase (after metadata, download, extraction), you will technically be safe but this is not recommended as it is risky, especially since these updates can be very fast.

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Bundled vs Standalone

Bundled Gupax comes the latest version of P2Pool/XMRig already in the zip/tar.

Standlone only contains the Gupax executable.

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How much memory does Gupax use?

Gupax itself uses around 100-300 megabytes of memory.

Gupax also holds up to 500,000 bytes of log data from P2Pool/XMRig to display in the GUI terminals. These logs are reset once over capacity which takes around 1-2 hours.

Memory usage should never be above 400~ megabytes. If you see Gupax using more than this, please send a bug report.

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How is sudo handled? (on macOS/Linux)

See here for more info.

---

Why does Gupax need to be Admin? (on Windows)

See here for more info.