Reddit – Dive into anything

Hey everyone,

I had quite a challenge setting up the pi node on my computer (Windows 10 home) and after spending time on the Node Applicants chat I can tell I am not the only one. I just want to say that I’m not sure if this is the fastest way to do this and it’s possible I did something extra, but this is how I got it to work…Good luck.

1.Fill out the application to become a node. I did this when it was announced a few weeks ago.

2. Make sure you have the correct version of the Pi Node on your computer. If you click on the “node” button (on the home screen) and you don’t see a continue button in orange you have the wrong version. I didn’t so I uninstalled the app entirely from my PC and then re-downloaded it from node.minepi.com.

3. Once you see the orange continue button click it.

4. There should be two drop down tabs, one that says Install Docker and another that says open router ports. It says Install docker which is misleading because, unless you have Windows 10 pro, you have install docker toolbox for all the other windows version. (Sorry I don’t know how Mac’s work). You can find the dockers tool box on the same page as the docker app.

You can tell if you accidentally downloaded the docker instead of the toolbox because when you go to the Pi Node it will say you are missing one prerequisite.

5. Install the dockers toolbox, which is actually several different programs like VirtualBox, Kitematic, and Quickstart Docker. I started by opening up the Quickstart and following some of the steps from https://docs.docker.com/get-started/ . I’m not sure how much of this is actually needed because I believe the Kitematic app does most of the work. (Maybe just open Quickstart and make sure that it’s working?).

6. Open Kitematic and you should see a whale logo counting up to 100%. When I first installed the program it wanted me to log in/sign up but nothing would happen when I tried to sign up. I restarted my computer and the problem seemed to fix itself.

I believe that the Kitematic connects everything together and is what starts the Deamon (but I’m not sure).

7. At this point I went back into the Pi Node and it said that the Docker was installed and the Daemon was running correctly.

8. Now it’s time to open up the ports (which is where a lot of people had trouble). A list of the required ports are available underneath the drop down tab.

9. The first thing I did was allow access to all of the ports in my firewall, but I’m not sure if this is entirely necessary. I found this guide useful https://www.windowscentral.com/how-open-port-windows-firewall . Just so you know select TCP, not UDP if you chose to do this.

10. The next thing I did was port forward from my router to my computer. If you need help with this this article is pretty helpful and also includes a list of usernames and passwords for popular routers. https://www.noip.com/support/knowledgebase/general-port-forwarding-guide/ . To log into your router you need to type in your ip address (which you can find by going to run –> cmd –> type in “ipconfig” and it’s your default gateway.

You’re going to need your computer specific ip address, which you can also find in ipconfig under your IPv4 address. This is another step that I’m not exactly sure whether or not it’s necessary, but I would air on the side of caution just to be safe.

11. This next step is what took me the longest time to figure out. You also need to port forward the Pi Node ports within the virtual machine in order for the Node to pick access the ports. This guide help me figure out how. https://www.howtogeek.com/122641/how-to-forward-ports-to-a-virtual-machine-and-use-it-as-a-server/. Half way down the page there is a bold title called how to port forward to a virtual machine which has the steps. Essentially you open up VirtualBox and in the program there should say that there is a virtual machine running. Right click and go to setting –> network –> advanced –> port forward. Just so you know, the Port Forward button will only clickable if the “attached to” drop down tab is selected on NAT.

I put the name, host port, and guest port as the name of the port listed on the pi node because I wasn’t exactly sure which was which. For the Host IP I put the number listed on the IPv4 Gateway and it worked for me. I just left the Guest IP Blank

That was it for me. I went back to the node and it let me connect to all of the ports. When it came to adding each of the ports on the firewall and virtual box I had to enter each one individually. Let me know if you find a better way. For port forwarding from my router I was able to just put in the top number being 31400-31409, if that helps anyone.

Good luck, I hope this helped. I’ll be around reddit and Node Applicants’ chat to answer any questions I can.