Plotting on Multiple Windows Computers

Posted byAlex ArmstrongPosted inUncategorizedTags:,
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“Two hands are better than one.” The same is true when plotting with Chia. You may already have your main PC plotting away and it might be at its limit. You then remember that you have an older PC or laptop that is not doing anything that you can use for plotting also. But how can you do this? Do you need to install the Chia client on that machine? What about the private keys?

Plotting on multiple machines is simple once you know how to do it. Firstly, you need to know how to interact with Chia via PowerShell if you’re on Windows. I covered this a bit in my post about using PowerShell to Plot. To get started, open a PowerShell window on the main PC that is doing the farming.

Next, enter the following command the change directories to the Chia directory:

cd "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\chia-blockchain\app-1.0.5\resources\app.asar.unpacked\daemon\"

Update the <username> field with your windows username and make sure app-1.0.5 is the correct version of the Chia Client. Once there, we will now enter the command to view the keys. A quick note about this first. This command will display all your keys, including some private keys. Do not show this to anyone. Do not do this while sharing your screen on a Zoom meeting. Someone can take over your account if they know these. Not so much the public keys, but the private keys must remain private. Proceed to enter the following command:

.\chia.exe keys show

Entering this command will show a bunch of keys. There are two keys that we need; The Farmer Public Key and the Pool Public Key. These keys need to be passed onto the second PC that will be plotting. Added note: If you lost your 24 word mnemonic key when you first setup Chia, you can display them now by executing the following command.

.\chia.exe keys show --show-mnemonic-seed

Again, show these to no one. Anyone can take control of your Chia account with these words.

Copy and paste your farmer and pool keys into a notepad. Do not try to hand type the keys, one mistake and its a world of pain. You won’t be able to farm the plots that are made. Always use copy/paste. To copy text from PowerShell just right-click inside the window and select “Mark”. Highlight the text you want to copy and then right-click again. In the notepad window, just paste the copied text. Save the notepad file onto a usb stick and move it to the second computer.

On the second computer, you will need to install the Chia Client. Once installed, the Client will open. Just close this window, do not generate new keys and do not recover keys from the mnemonic phrase. Next, you will need to plot using PowerShell. Open a new PowerShell window and change directories to the chia directory listed above. Once in this directory, enter the following command to generate a plot with the specific keys.

.\chia.exe plots create -k 32 -b 3389 -u 128 -r 2 -t E:\temp -d D:\plot -n 1 -f <insert farmer key> -p <insert pool key>

Two additional flags are used in the create command “-f” and “-p”. Be sure you copy the correct keys to the correct locations. Once entered, the plotter will begin generating plots. Once done, transfer your plots to the location that the farmer is looking at to farm plots. The farmer will pick these up and will begin farming them. Repeat the cycle for as long as you wish.

If you want to know more about what CLI commands are out there for Chia, visit the Chia Team’s wiki here to see all available commands.

41 thoughts on “Plotting on Multiple Windows Computers”

  1. Very nice Blog, thanks! Do you know which parameters to use (or modify) so one can plot from another client that already has keys generated to split the reward? I heard it would be possible for one party to just plot and receive 1/8th of all rewards and then handover the plots to the farmer who will get 7/8th of the rewards. Not quite clear on where to put which keys though. Help or a blog post would be appriciated =) Keep up the good work!

  2. I think this cannot be done the way you want it. The plotters would have to use their public farmer key when plotting in order to get 1/8th. But, when the farmer gets that plot, they will need the private keys of the plotter in order to “farm” those plots. Which would allow the farmer to control everything.

  3. Hi,

    thanks for such helpful information. I have one question:

    i plan to have one harvester machine but it is not at the same network as from plot machine. can you please tell me what exactly i have to do or can you please make an new entry for this theme?

    Thanks 🙂

    1. Hi Nam, If both computers are not on the network then you will need a portable USB drive to transfer the plots from one machine to another.

      2. Oh, I believe I misunderstood you at first. You have two machines on separate networks and would like to farm from both. In this case, its OK for both to be full nodes. It would be like having a full node at one house and a full node at another house. The issue I thought you were talking about is having two machines on the same LAN. In this case, two full nodes will introduce network issues like syncing problems.

      3. Hi, I use LAN network to transfer directly the plots, from the second plotter to the main one and farming on it, i leaned a tip on reddit that i copy the “db” folder on the first PC and replace on the second one, it synced immediate by entering “node.chia.net:8444″ in ” connect to other peers” on GUI. So far, i have both machine synced, so, am I okay?
        One thing that seems wrong to me is that the once plots are done, they are farmed on both machines. For exemple, i had already 10 plots on the main machine, when the second PC finish one plots, it appears to have 2 farming plots on it and 10+2=12 farming plots on the main PC.
        What could be the problem with having multiple machines at full node on the same network? Thank you.

      4. Hi Binhlake, The problem with having two full nodes is that you’ll have network issues such as syncing and missed signage points. If you look at last attempted challenge on the node, does a new one appear about every 10 seconds? Check the debug log of the full node to see if you are having network issues. You should either make the second PC a harvester if you want to farm on it without running a full node or only plot with PowerShell.

  4. Hi,

    You said to not restore mneumonic words on another pc, but if I need, can I do? I have a New pc arriving tomorrow where I would Like to farm The plots that I have done on my actual pc, and lets my actual pc only to create News plots.

    Greetings from brazil

    1. Hi Gabriel, It is not good practice to have private keys on both machines because it is less secure. If you are moving your farm to the new PC then this is OK. Nothing will break if keys are on both machines. Network issues will happen if you run a Full node on each machine.

      1. Thanks for help

        Isso possible to disable full node on gui?

      2. No Problem. Currently there is not a way to disable the full node in the GUI. If the GUI is running, the full node is running. Hopefully there is an option in the future.

  5. Hello,

    How do I move my Farm? I have setup 2 machines on the same network and already have 2 full node. I have farmed some plots on one machine that I do not want to be a farm anymore. Can I manually add these plots to the new machine?

    Thank you.

    1. Hi, this is one of my next topics, are they running the same key? If so, you can move them over fine. But if not, you need to import the 24 words from the first machine to the second machine then move the plots over.

  6. Heyy,
    i want to set up a system, where i can plot with two computers and only farm with one of them.

    Are there two possibilities?

    1.) Installing full node on the farm/plotting machine and use PowerShell comands on the plotting machine to create plots without a full node.

    2.) install full node with the same keys on both machines, disable upnp in the configs of the plotting machine.
    Then plot at both and move the files from the plotting to the farming machine.

    Is this right?

    Thanks for your help,
    Manuel

    1. Hi Manuel, Yes you can do it both of those ways. You can also block the plotting machine with windows firewall. Just click cancel when it asks you if you want to allow it through.

  7. Can you please add an example of a script to plot 3 plots in parallel automatically, one set of 3 after another? Thank You!

  8. Good afternoon.
    I would like to farm or create my plots from two different computers located on different networks, but then transfer the plots to the “main” computer with a portable USB. I understand that this is possible simply by installing chia on the new pc, importing the same private key and then transferring the parcels to the original pc, right?

    1. Hi Garce, Yes, you can do it this way. You can also use the farmer key and pool key method incase you don’t want your private keys on another machine.

  9. Hi there – I unfortunately have plots generated with 7 different keys. It’s a nightmare.

    Question: Is it possible to farm with all 7 keys on one machine after entering the 24 word phrase for each key?

    It seems to work, all plots are farming… but I”m not sure since I’m completely new to this.

  10. Hi, I think you have answered already my question in your replies, but I’d like to be really sure. So I have two pcs at two different locations (not the same local network) and I would like to plot and to harvest from both locations with the same mnemonic key. Would there be any problems if I run them both as full nodes or do I still have to have only one farmer and connect them over the internet for that?
    Thanks for the blogposts and keep them coming 🙂

    1. Yes, you can run the PCs as full nodes because they are in different locations. Just make sure that the farming rewards address and pool rewards address is the same for each node. This is on the “farm” tab and the three dots at the top right in the Chia Client. This address should be the “receive address” from the “wallet” tab in the Chia Client.

  11. hi there, what if i have 2 machines running and plotting from gui.

    – both is a separate private address. A & B
    – both machine is in the same house with same wifi/ lan connection

    so can both machines run full node?

  12. Hi Alex, I’m running six dedicated servers with different IPs, i can and should plot and farm and run the gui on all of them without trouble right? Thanks a lot for your help.

  13. Hi, if have X same computer (with SSD, HDD, RAM, CPU) is it good plan to put in one all SSD (with RAID X..), this will be the full node and plot, in the others put all HDD (with e.g. RAID5) and share as network drive via Windows SMB the disk space to the full node, these will be the final directories? Or better to all computer put SSD’s and HDD’s and every macines will plot and harvester according to youtube videos? The first plan seems simple (only set Win share), but I don’t know there is big difference betwwen two solution to get Chia (XCH). Thank you!

    1. Hi Attila, The way I’m doing it is I have my plotters and my farmer separate. This way, if I need to do maintenance on the Plotter, it won’t take down my farmer. Also, plotting won’t affect answering network challenges. Also, I don’t have any youtube videos…can you give me a Link to these? Is someone trying to pretend they are me? Check my “About” page to see where I am officially.

      1. Hi Alex, first of all thank you for the feedback! Reason of I have same machine to this, I was think to use the all hardver all of them will plotting and farming, with one full node (with copy the CA), but the maintenance is OK that you wrote.. Sorry I just usually reffered some youtube videos in same theme, so I mispronounced and asked this question on several forums before planning.. Thank you again!

  14. Hi Alex, is it possible 2 PC on different location ( PC 1 just for plot and PC 2 just for farm ) ? if it can be done, how to configure ? Thank You

  15. When you use this method, to plot on a second machine, and copy the final files to the shared folder where the main machine is farming, does anything have to be done on the farming machine for it to see the new plots or does it rescan automatically occasionally. Also, if I want to change my full node machine to new hardware, should I just let it resync from start (using same keys) and then once the blockchain is sync’d to the new computer, I just move the forwarded port to the new computer, and then I can stop the node on the original one?

    Thanks for a great article

    1. Hi 172Pilot, Thanks for your comment. Yes, the farmer should pick up the new plot automatically as long as its in a folder that it is using to farm. I would not let it resync, it takes a lot of time to sync right now with the growth of the netspace. Look at my post about moving farms from one computer to another, it should answer your question.

  16. I have one plotter where I was using plotman and configured it to use the same public key for both farmer and pool (-f -p), which is actually my farmer public key.

    If I go to check the plots on a machine with these keys, I get the message that :

    There are [x] plots with a farmer or pool public key that is not on this machine. The farmer private key must be in the keychain in order to farm them, use ‘chia keys’ to transfer keys. The pool public keys must be in the config.yaml

    Are these plots savable? I would think if I could make my pool key pair to be the same as my farmer key pair they would be?

    I can see there is an empty entry in config.yaml for

    pool_public_keys: []

    but if I put my farmer public key here are things really going to work?

    One concern is that I may do enough to satisfy chia plots check but that they still will not be usable for some reason (or not get a full farmer+pool reward).

    1. Hi cboles, I haven’t used plotman so I’m not sure what its doing. But I do know that if you use your farmer public key and pool public key on your plotter, it will work. These keys are different! They are not the same.

  17. Hello, is it possible to install the cli on a machine and use shared space of some kind openmediavault? or just space shared by nfs?

    Thanks

    1. Hi, when you install the Chia Client in Windows, you have both the CLI and the GUI accessible. There have been many problems farming plots on a network share. I suggest running the docker container on the NAS or locally attach the storage.

  18. Dear Alex,

    As I want to be sure, i come with a question.

    I want to farm with the same Key but on 2 different location. One in my House one in another house. Not on same network.

    SHould i Install Chia on both Computer with the Same Key ? And how the network will use my 2 farming location ?
    If I get on one part 100 plots and 100 plots to another part, did the network will use 200 plots at the same time ?

    Hope my question is clear enough.

    Thank you in advance for your help.

    1. Hi Fabian, yes you can have Chia on both computers with same key since they are at different locations. You can also farm plots at both locations as long as they are not copies. If the same plots are at both locations it will not increase chances to win. It will only waste energy.

      1. Dear Alex,

        Thank you for your fast reply.

        I just need to Harverst and Farm on 2 places to share expense with a Friend and share maybe XCH.

        So will install same key on both part. -) Thank

        King Regards,
        Fabian

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