Bitcoin Forum

The default is 8 out connections.  I configure my full node to allow 50 connections resulting in 42 in connections.  Would it be more helpful to configure more out connections?

I dont think it matters who establishes the connection and if you establish all the connections you have no more free spots for clients that are looking for another node. I also noticed that if you run a node for some time, the maximum connection count gets saturated quickly. Which IMHO makes sense as your IP is in more peers.dat files.

This is my node that has been running for ~2 years now and as you can see after a reboot its back close to the limit (42) within ~24 hours.

https://i.imgur.com/VYi5Fcq.png

This is my new node that has been running for only a few days and besides some peaks to ~125 due to connections by spv clients it grows connections more slowly. It will probably be another week until it hits 40 steady connections.

https://i.imgur.com/GtHH2bW.png

Hmm, interesting.  Suppose the software were "enhanced" to establish out connection all the way up to a few less than the maximum allowed connections right away.  After that whenever there are near maximum connections, it would drop out connections to make room for some more in connections.  I suppose we would have to be careful not to drop our last few full connections; having only SVP connections might be some sort of problem.

I sort of do this manually now.  I review the list of Peers and disconnect some as I see fit.  For example, ones reporting terribly skewed clocks get dropped.  Honestly, set your clock.