RE: Guide: How To Build A Cryptocurrency Proof-of-Stake Mining Box For Absolute Newbies
I built a few different coins on raspi Pis and other SBCs, a few things I discovered along the way.
The 1GB RAM on a pi2b pi3b is the main limiting factor in terms of both compiling and running the node. You did 'make -j4' which seems to make sense because you have 4 CPU cores, but you will run out if RAM easily which actually slows down the compile, even -j2 is slower than a single core compile in my own tests. The other part is to carefully monitor the RAM used while operating the node, as blockchain length grows more RAM is needed. Running in headless mode (without a desktop) will save around 150MB RAM so your compiling will be faster and your Pi will have a longer useful life as a crypto node.
Security is another important aspect, change the default password on the Pi, and consider running the coin on a different user account. Also install a firewall, 'UFW' is simple and easy to use. Also if you are remoting in 'fail2ban' stops more than a few password guesses and blocks IPs that fail to get the right login. You can also change the standard port numbers for any services like SSH you might be using which will make some basic attacks fail. Personally I also keep UPNP disabled on my router and devices so malicious programs can't open ports I don't know about.
Obviously always encrypt your wallet.dat and keep a backup on another device. Also consider keeping an image of the SD card once you have it all configured nicely, SD cards fail without warning.
Really a nice post and it's great to see more PoS using minimal resources.
Great reply, thank you! I will definitely take your tips regarding security into account.