Xa-Miner Maintenance Tasks
Some typical maintenance tasks which a user needs to perform on their provider will now be slightly different with the UI as compared to using the CLI provider. These are documented below.
Upgrading to a new SPD Release
When a new version of the SPD daemon is released, for example, prior to the fork in January 2023, the process for full license installations is very straightforward.
Step 1 – In Docker Desktop, stop the container by clicking on the square icon to the right of the container
Step 2 – In File Explorer, locate the xa-miner app folder, by default it’s C:\ProgramData\xa-miner\app. From here go into the config directory and then spd. Inside this folder you will see 2 files, ports.yml and spd. Move the spd file to the recycle bin. If you chose a different location for the xa-miner app folder during installation of the software then you will need to browse to that folder to find spd.
Step 3 – Start up the container in Docker Desktop by clicking on the play icon
If you refresh the Xa-Miner UI now, you will see on the Dashboard the updated SPD version.
Upgrading to a new Xa-Miner Software Release
Prior to upgrading to a new Xa-Miner container version, it is worth taking a copy of the docker run command used to deploy the existing container. This can help recover in case there are any issues in deploying the updated version which a few users have seen. To do this you must be running at least Docker Desktop 4.15.0, if you are on a previous version you should update to the latest version first.
In version 4.15.0 and newer, click on the 3 dots to the right of your xa-miner container and click Copy docker run:
Then open a text editor like Notepad and paste the clipboard contents there. The output should look something like this (with your wallet seed where the blue redacted text is). Note the seed won’t have any double quotes around it so you will need to add these as there are spaces in the seed for the command to work should you need it:
Save this file onto your desktop in case you need it later.
When a new version of the Software Xa-Miner is released, the process to update the software is to run the installer application used when first installing the software on the provider PC.
Click on Next.
If there is a new version of the Xa-Miner container detected by the installer, the Update Existing button will be active and show Update Required underneath. Simply click on Update Existing, the installer will perform the upgrade (takes 1-2 mins) and when it’s finished, the updated version will be running and the installer will exit. Refresh the Xa-Miner UI and the updated versions of the spd, Supervisor and UI versions will show on the Dashboard.
Adding new storage folders
To add a new storage folder to your provider, you will first need to add the drive into Windows, create a partition, format it and assign a drive letter. If it’s a large drive over 2TB, create multiple folders, plan for 1 folder per 2TB of space on the drive.
Once you have the folders created, run the installer application again, then in the installer GUI with the 4 options as below, select Configure Existing:
After clicking on Configure Existing, you’ll be presented with the following screen showing all the existing provider’s storage folders.
Click on Add Storage Folder
Select the folder you wish to add from here and click on OK. Repeat for each folder you wish to add.
Then you will see your new folder added to the list of storage folders.
Click on Finish. This GUI will show it configuring your Xa-Miner and then will present you with the following screen at which point you can close the browser tab and access the Xa-Miner UI again.
Now return to the main Xa-Miner UI, go to the Storage page and you’ll see the added storage folder there.
Enter the size in GB you want to set the folder size to and click Assign.
Removing Storage Folders
A similar process can be used in reverse to remove storage folders in a similar way to using ‘spc host folder remove <PATH>’ from the CLI. First navigate to the Storage page on the Xa-Miner UI, find the folder from the first column you wish to remove and click on the Remove button to the right.
Any data stored in the folder being removed will be moved by spd to other folders. This process may take some time depending on how much data needs moving so it’s recommended to remove just one folder at a time.
Once the folder is removed from the Xa-Miner UI, run the installer application again and choose Configure Existing:
The following screen will show all the folders which have been added to the Xa-Miner, note if you have more than 10 drives/folders then you may need to go to the next page or change the rows per page value to All to see the one(s) you want to remove.
Simply click on the red icon in the Action column against the folder you wish to remove and then click Finish. Once all folders on a drive have been removed, the drive can be physically removed from the PC.
Recovering the Wallet Seed Phrase
Should the wallet seed phrase be forgotten, this can be recovered from the container terminal in Docker Desktop. The spc application has been added into the xa-miner container now, if spc is not available, an update of the Xa-Miner software will be required using the process above in the Upgrading to a new Xa-Miner Software Release section.
Bring up the Docker Desktop application, select Containers menu on the left side menu so you see the following page:
Click on the 3 dots on the right side of the Xa-Miner container and select Open in Terminal. This will give you a CLI for the container itself. Run the following command:
spc wallet seeds
This will show you the Primary Seed:
