Configuring Abe to work with Litecoin using MySQL

Abe is a cryptocurrency block explorer for Bitcoin and any other related chain.

  1. Install python
  2. Install pycrypto to prevent ImportError: No module named Crypto.Hash.SHA256
  3. Install python-mysqldb (e.g. <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/454854/no-module-named-mysqldb">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/454854/no-module-named-mysqldb</a>) to prevent ImportError: No module named MySQLdb
  4. Create a new MySQL database named abe.
  5. Configure abe.conf: 
    dbtype MySQLdb
connect-args {"user":"abe","db":"abe","passwd":"password"}
port 12345
host localhost
  6. Add in the following to abe.conf, to prevent Chain not found for magic number: 
    datadir += [{
  "dirname" : "/path/to/.litecoin",
  "chain": "Litecoin",
  "code3": "LTC",
  "address_version": "u0030",
  "magic": "u00fbu00c0u00b6u00db"
}]
  7. Build and install Abe: python setup.py build, python setup.py install
  8. Configure Abe to start by scanning: python -m Abe.abe --config abe.conf --rescan. You should get a whole lot of block_tx xxx xxx and commits.
  9. You should now be able to connect to Abe via http://localhost:12345.

References: Configuring Abe with Terracoin, this magic file

Setting up Litecoin mining on Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS

  • I followed this guide mainly, with some help from my comment and this guide and this guide.
  • I had to install the Linux beta drivers (13.3 Beta 3) from ATI to get things to work.
  • If you installed the server package, you need to have an X server. The easiest way to set this up is to install a desktop manager (Gnome) along with a minimal X: sudo apt-get install xorg gdm
  • After installing new drivers, execute sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial -f and restart.

The scripts that I am using (for two Radeon 7850s):

[mine.sh]

#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:0
export GPU_MAX_ALLOC_PERCENT=100
export GPU_USE_SYNC_OBJECTS=1
cd /home/<username>/cgminer
./cgminer --scrypt -o my.stratum.server:17001 -u username -p password -w 256 --thread-concurrency 12404 -I 18 --lookup-gap 2 --auto-fan 2>/home/<username>/cgminer.log

[mine-launcher.sh]

#!/bin/bash
DEFAULT_DELAY=0
if [ "x$1" = "x" -o "x$1" = "xnone" ]; then
   DELAY=$DEFAULT_DELAY
else
   DELAY=$1
fi
sleep $DELAY
sudo su -c "screen -dmS cgm /home/<username>/mine.sh"

And these scripts are owned by root so they can be started as root in /etc/rc.local:

chown root:root mine.sh mine-launcher.sh
chmod a+x mine.sh mine-launcher.sh