I have set up Windows 10 to automatically start up the Chia GUI (the “Chia.exe” not “chia.exe”) when starting up.
So if there has been a power outage and once the pc automatically restarts when the power is restored, my farmer should automatically run the GUI farmer (not harvester).
Even if the wallet is not selected, my understanding is that the farmer will still farm with the first listed wallet.
Now that there is a passphrase, would the GUI still farm even though you have not entered the passphrase?
I will probably get a UPS for power blips or <1 hr outages, but few times a year there are outages lasting more than several hours where a consumer-grade UPS won’t last that long. Sometimes it takes a while to fix the lines that the Yetis have chewed on.
To farm the farmer needs to sign proofs (or partials when pooling) with it’s private key. It can’t get to that without the passphrase so I guess it won’t. If you’re using a pool you could check whether or not that pool receives partials before passphrase is entered.
Maybe you can restart automatically by some powershell script in Windows start-up settings.
You can add a --passphrase-file to cli commands.
I have no experience with Chia cli on windows, also not with adding powershell cli commands/scripts on start-up.
This plain text passphrase file on your system would of course make the passphrase kind of useless in the first place… So delete the passphrase?
It does, also with other wallets/fingerprints present on the client. Choosing one at startup is only to choose which wallet will be synced and shown in GUI, but that’s not necessary for farming.
Thinking about what @Bones said, it’s possible the client will start farming with the keys still available in the OS keyring. As a favor to users wanting to downgrade to earlier versions these keys are left intact during migration in 1.2.11, unless specific deletion of that old location was chosen.
There are some interesting remarks in the github wiki on passphrases… A bit over my head.
## Additional Notes
On macOS and Windows, an option is available to save the passphrase to the OS-provided secure credential store (macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager). This option may help with automated workflows, but carries a risk that other processes may be able to read the saved passphrase without requiring user authorization. For this reason, it’s recommended that users only save their passphrase if they fully trust their environment.
To facilitate downgrading to a prior version of Chia, keys will be left intact in their old locations after migration (unless migrating from the command line, and the option to delete old keys was selected.)
If necessary, it’s possible to temporarily disable passphrase support as well as usage of the new keyring. To disable passphrase and keyring support, set the `CHIA_PASSPHRASE_SUPPORT` environment variable to `false` and run Chia as you normally would. Once disabled, Chia will use the old location for key retrieval and storage. Example: `$ export CHIA_PASSPHRASE_SUPPORT=false; chia start farmer`
Short outages are more common than long outages – at least from my experience on the east coast of the USA.
A ¼ second outage would probably crash everything. Whereas, with a UPS, you should be fine. And with one that does automatic voltage regulation (AVR), it will protect your equipment from other types of harmful, dirty power, even if there is no outage.
And for an extended outage, the UPS gives you the means to perform a graceful shutdown, instead of your system getting clobbered and risking file corruption (like Chia databases) – assuming you are present to perform the shutdown, or have remote access to perform the shutdown, or your UPS comes with software that will initiate a shutdown after X minutes, or after the battery drains to X percent.
I just did a test and my guess is that there is no farming until I enter the passphrase.
With INFO level set, the debug log only shows several lines and nothing else shows up until I enter the passphrase. After I entered the passphrase, the debug log says:
2021-12-10T13:17:21.352 daemon main : INFO Running check_keys now that the keyring is unlocked
Starting Chia.exe without a passphrase activated: the Client starts farming
With passphrase active, the Client stops right at the passphrase field. No farmign takes place until passphrase is entered.
Solution: remove passphrase for autostart, create a cold wallet and transfer all Chia to the cold wallet at once and transfer newly mined chia to the cold wallet.
Low priced UPS’s will have smaller batteries.
They will not run long (perhaps 5 or 10 minutes on full load), and they will not be able to power too much equipment.
Also, they will offer little, if any, in the way of surge suppression, and will likely not have an LCD display to give you info on power consumption, load, input voltage, etc.
Some offer software and a USB cable. The software is probably for automated shutdown of your PC, in the event of an extended power outage. But the software might also give you info on the status of the UPS (you will have to research the software’s offerings for details on everything it does). As with any software, use at your own risk.
Here are two sites that ship anywhere in the USA (not sure about elsewhere, and not sure where you live):
For #2, it might default to a specific store, or ask you to choose a store.
If there is no store local to you, then choose “Shippable Items” from their drop-down list.
If there is a store local to you, then choose that store, and it will show you only that store’s inventory.
The above links should sort by lowest price first.
In both cases, the first item listed is not a UPS.
Amazon and others sell UPS’s, too.
When choosing a UPS, be sure that it can power your equipment. Check its “VA” rating or its “Watts” rating.
When you take possession of your order, try to determine the manufacturing date of the battery.
Consider returning it if it is more than 6 months old.
You might have to remove the cover for the battery (or remove the battery) to see the date (assuming they put a date on it).
Lastly, verify that you can replace the battery when it starts to go dead (should last 3 to 5 years).
Although, if the UPS costs, for example, $50, it might cost less to buy a new UPS vs trying to locate the battery for sale and its shipping cost, which will probably cost similar to the price of a new UPS (although who knows what pricing will be in a few years).
UPS is just a glorified package to sell expensive batteries. Whatever you have inside is either 6V or 12V standard lead battery. As long as your UPS has some Watts headroom to run your devices, you can just buy a standard marine (sealed) 12V battery, and use that instead of what is in the original one. This way, you get more blackout time for much less.
Also, as has been mentioned, those small batteries (or rather inexpensive lead ones) last around 3 years or so. If you want to have less headache you can look into LiFePo batteries that last around 20 years or so. Sure, those are about 3-4x more expensive, but last 6+x longer.
An inexpensive UPS is known as a “bucket of batteries”, because that is all that UPS does – kick in when there is a power outage.
Better units will regulate the power, even to the point of double conversion (AC to DC and back to AC). The dual conversion units cost the most, and ensure that nothing from the power grid can reach your connected equipment. Your connected equipment is receiving 100% newly generated power from your UPS.
Better units can also be tied in to generators that will automatically kick in to replace the loss of power from the utility company, and will do so long before your UPS’s batteries get low.
My last company had a UPS that could put out over 2 megawatts of power. They had numerous pallets of batteries (looked like car batteries) that could put out 2 megawatts for 15 minutes.
That wildly expensive UPS also allowed for two loops from different power sources. So it could withstand a single outage from one of the power sources feeding it.
At $50, however, you are basically paying for a battery, and a simple, mass produced mechanism that would switch to the battery when power was cut.
I am intrigued by LiFePo batteries. That is news to me. Thanks for sharing.
I am not arguing your point about quality, etc. Although, I find it ridiculous that some main features being advertised are polished look and four-digit LCDs, USB charging point (yes, I am thrilled to have it sitting on my desk in front of my computer, so I can charge some junk), where there is no front power jack so I can plug my laptop in, and shut down my devices, that those expensive ones don’t have an Ethernet port/switch, so I can use any web browser to check the status. This part makes it a glorifying thing - basically stone age electrical circuits with no current technology in it.
The only point that I wanted to make is that once you have something that you like, purchasing a big battery is a game changer. That’s it.
As for myself, I have mostly APC 1500 units, as I fully agree with you that the lower the price, the crappier the H/W is.