What should be the limit for miner to mine a block

Question

I am trying to run my smart contract in remix ide, below is my smart contract code:

pragma solidity >=0.4.17 <0.7.0;
pragma experimental ABIEncoderV2;
contract Department{

    struct Employee{
        uint empId;
        string empName;
        uint256 empSalary;
    }

    uint departmentId;
    string departmentName;
    mapping (uint => Employee) public employees;
    uint public employeeCount;

    constructor(uint _departmentId, string memory _departmentName) public {
        employeeCount = 0;
        departmentId = _departmentId;
        departmentName = _departmentName;
    }

    function addEmployee(uint _empId, string memory _empName, uint _empSalary ) public {
        employees[employeeCount] = Employee(_empId, _empName, _empSalary);
        employeeCount++;
    }

    //return Single structure
    function get(uint _index) public view returns(Employee memory) {
        return employees[_index];
    }

    //return Array of structure Value
    function getEmployee() public view returns (uint[] memory, string[] memory, uint[] memory) {
        uint[]    memory id = new uint[](employeeCount);
        string[]  memory name = new string[](employeeCount);
        uint[]    memory salary = new uint[](employeeCount);
        for (uint i = 0; i < employeeCount; i++) {
          Employee storage employee = employees[i];
          id[i] = employee.empId;
          name[i] = employee.empName;
          salary[i] = employee.empSalary;
        }
        return (id, name, salary);
    }

    //return Array of structure
    function getEmployees() public view returns (Employee[] memory) {
        Employee[]  memory id = new Employee[](employeeCount);
        for (uint i = 0; i < employeeCount; i++) {
          Employee storage employee = employees[i];
          id[i] = employee;
        }
        return id;
    }

}

I am running private block wherein my miners are mining the blocks. I had my miners running all the time but they were adding empty blocks so I used --preload mineWhenNeeded.js flag and limit the miners to mine until 12 blocks using following code in my mineWhenNeeded.js

var minimum_confirmations = 12;
var mining_threads = 1
var txBlock = 0
function checkWork() {
    if (eth.getBlock("pending").transactions.length > 0) {
        txBlock = eth.getBlock("pending").number
        if (eth.mining) return;
        console.log("  Transactions pending. Mining...");
        miner.start(mining_threads)
        interval = setInterval(function () {
            if (eth.getBlock("latest").number < txBlock + minimum_confirmations) {
                if (eth.getBlock("pending").transactions.length > 0) txBlock = eth.getBlock("pending").number;
            } else {
                console.log(minimum_confirmations + " confirmations achieved; mining stopped.");
                miner.stop()
                clearInterval(interval);
            }
        }, 600)
    }
}

eth.filter("latest", function (err, block) { checkWork(); });
eth.filter("pending", function (err, block) { checkWork(); });

checkWork();

Here is my geth command

 geth --datadir $ethereum_home/chaindata --preload "scripts/mineWhenNeeded.js" --networkid 45638 --verbosity 6 --rpc --port 30304 --rpcport 8545 --rpcaddr "0.0.0.0" --rpcapi "web3,eth,personal,net" --rpccorsdomain remix.ethereum.org --nodiscover --gcmode archive --allow-insecure-unlock console 2

But now after some time I am getting error Returned error: gas required exceeds allowance (8000000) or always failing transaction

After few experiments I realize that if I let my miners run for a while and check the limit of my latest block using following code eth.getBlock("pending").gasLimit in geth console, the limit is decreasing gradually. It seems like if I let my miners run all the time then I will not get that gas required exceeds allowance issue anymore. Now I am wondering, should I remove the restriction to mine only 12 blocks but it gonna start adding empty blocks again. What should I do?

Answer 1

The block gas limit can be controlled by two geth command line options

• --miner.gastarget value Target gas floor for mined blocks
• --miner.gaslimit value Target gas ceiling for mined blocks