Setting Up a Bitcoin Node

[zvs]

Is there any other benefit to running a full node beyond increasing the diversity/stability of the network?

Im not sure but having more connections would mean that blocks are loaded faster if you have to download blocks for some days. With standard client it can be hard to wait to download the blocks of last days.
Its hard to wait until to get confirmations but even harder when you cant use bitcoins because you miss the last blocks. With more connections this should be faster.

That is false, downloading of blocks are depended on I/O speeds, CPU, and network, this will not make blocks download faster.

The benefits are that your helping the network and protecting it.

Strange. I never had much traffic or cpu and blocks were loading painful slow with 8 connections. So my guess was that, like with every other p2p-network you only need more partners to get blocks faster. Ok, then the border is somewhere else...

whenever i have a significant amt of blocks I need to catch up on, i just connect to one fast node..   then there's no risk of slow peers, taking the 'network' out of the equation

[1715188373]

1715188373

[os2sam]

Alright Gents, I have 25 connections now and have relayed a couple of transactions first on blockchain.info. 
-Wave

I setup port forwarding to my client last night.  I'm up to 28 connections now.

How do you know you've relayed transactions?  Does the client log that?
Thanks,
Sam

[Wave]

Os2Sam,
Search for your IP address on blockchain.info site is how I did it.

-Wave

[os2sam]

Os2Sam,
Search for your IP address on blockchain.info site is how I did it.

-Wave

Oh, OK.  Obvious enough .

Well you've helped me move forward a little more.  Hadn't really thought much about setting up port forwarding to my Bitcoin node in a while, now with your, and others, here input I've gotten it done.
Thanks,
Sam

[bcpokey]

Is there any other benefit to running a full node beyond increasing the diversity/stability of the network?

Im not sure but having more connections would mean that blocks are loaded faster if you have to download blocks for some days. With standard client it can be hard to wait to download the blocks of last days.
Its hard to wait until to get confirmations but even harder when you cant use bitcoins because you miss the last blocks. With more connections this should be faster.

That is false, downloading of blocks are depended on I/O speeds, CPU, and network, this will not make blocks download faster.

The benefits are that your helping the network and protecting it.

Strange. I never had much traffic or cpu and blocks were loading painful slow with 8 connections. So my guess was that, like with every other p2p-network you only need more partners to get blocks faster. Ok, then the border is somewhere else...

whenever i have a significant amt of blocks I need to catch up on, i just connect to one fast node..   then there's no risk of slow peers, taking the 'network' out of the equation

How do you connect to just one node (and know it's fast)? I have to download the entire blockchain, and its going to take days at the current rate.

[Fcx35x10]

I just set up mines on a vm. Took about 2 hours to dowoad. Supporting ฿ all the way!

[os2sam]

If it doesn't increase it numbers of connections try:

bitcoin-qt.exe -maxconnections=x , while x is the number of connections you would like to have at max.

This option only limits your connections to your "x" value.

Is there a reason to limit the number of connections?  If so what is a good number to limit it to?
Sam

[Wave]

Been going a few weeks now, and it seems I average around 60 connections.  How do I improve that?


-Wave

[owenmichaels]

I got it, up to 10 connections now and slowly climbing.

The short of it...

Install bitcoinqt client and sync with block chain
Be sure the computer running the bitcoin client gets a static IP address assigned by your router
Forward port TCP port 8333 from internet to the IP you assigned in the step above
Done ;-)


-Wave

Why does it have to be TCP port 8333?

[os2sam]

I got it, up to 10 connections now and slowly climbing.

The short of it...

Install bitcoinqt client and sync with block chain
Be sure the computer running the bitcoin client gets a static IP address assigned by your router
Forward port TCP port 8333 from internet to the IP you assigned in the step above
Done ;-)


-Wave

Why does it have to be TCP port 8333?

Why not?  It has to be something.  I guess that is what the programmers decided on when they started the Bitcoin Client development.

[01BTC10]

It's the default port. You can change it in the config file.

[os2sam]

Os2Sam,
Search for your IP address on blockchain.info site is how I did it.

-Wave

Oh, OK.  Obvious enough .

Well you've helped me move forward a little more.  Hadn't really thought much about setting up port forwarding to my Bitcoin node in a while, now with your, and others, here input I've gotten it done.
Thanks,
Sam

I haven't paid much attention to my "Full Bitcoin Node" in a while.  But today I took a look at my bandwidth usage.  My uplink bandwidth is peaking around 1.4Mb and I'm relaying 7 to 15 transactions a day now.  I was a little surprised by my bandwidth usage though.

Was curious as to what others mileage was now?
Such as:

How many connections?
How many transactions relayed a day?
Upstream bandwidth usage?

Sam

[Wave]

Have not looked at bandwidth.  So, I have my own URL and was thinking or setting up a port forward for a URL so my IP address is not an issue.  Thoughts?  Anyone done this?

[Cranky4u]

Thinking about setting up a full node...mainly interested if you get paid those small transaction limit BTCs that are sometimes asked for in transactions...if not, were do those micro-BTC units get sent to when your over the limit?

[The 4ner]

Can you guys help me do this on a Mac? I too would like to help improve the network.

[The 4ner]

Can you guys help me do this on a Mac? I too would like to help improve the network.

Just download bitcoin-qt

I have it. I'm reffering to configuring the port forward to allow for more connections. I'm currently only able to connect up to 8.

[T-rage_11]

can someone compile this for windows? https://github.com/TvdW/bitpeer

Bitpeer is an experimental Bitcoin relay server. Its event-driven architecture makes it extremely fast, and it was designed to be very lightweight.

this is the creator: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/users/4358/tom-van-der-woerdt

the creator donates 250GB a day with this software to the network !!!!!

I wrote my own lightweight tx/block relay that can easily handle up to 10000 incoming connections as long as the network connection allows it. I then tweaked it to ensure a high amount of connections (incoming or outgoing, currently ~750) and since it's usually first with relaying blocks/transactions, that causes a lot of network traffic. – Tom van der Woerdt

i need this for windows or linux   but I have no idea how to build this ..  

[gweedo]

can someone compile this for windows? https://github.com/TvdW/bitpeer

Bitpeer is an experimental Bitcoin relay server. Its event-driven architecture makes it extremely fast, and it was designed to be very lightweight.

this is the creator: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/users/4358/tom-van-der-woerdt

the creator donates 250GB a day with this software to the network !!!!!

I wrote my own lightweight tx/block relay that can easily handle up to 10000 incoming connections as long as the network connection allows it. I then tweaked it to ensure a high amount of connections (incoming or outgoing, currently ~750) and since it's usually first with relaying blocks/transactions, that causes a lot of network traffic. – Tom van der Woerdt

i need this for windows or linux   but I have no idea how to build this ..  

Uhmmm this is a huge security risk. If you want to use a central server I suggest using electrum which has window binaries.

This is a horrible program it does nothing and can be easily converted to a cancer node and hurt the network.

If you want to donate to the network use bitcoin-qt.

[T-rage_11]

can someone compile this for windows? https://github.com/TvdW/bitpeer

Bitpeer is an experimental Bitcoin relay server. Its event-driven architecture makes it extremely fast, and it was designed to be very lightweight.

this is the creator: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/users/4358/tom-van-der-woerdt

the creator donates 250GB a day with this software to the network !!!!!

I wrote my own lightweight tx/block relay that can easily handle up to 10000 incoming connections as long as the network connection allows it. I then tweaked it to ensure a high amount of connections (incoming or outgoing, currently ~750) and since it's usually first with relaying blocks/transactions, that causes a lot of network traffic. – Tom van der Woerdt

i need this for windows or linux   but I have no idea how to build this ..  

Uhmmm this is a huge security risk. If you want to use a central server I suggest using electrum which has window binaries.

This is a horrible program it does nothing and can be easily converted to a cancer node and hurt the network.

If you want to donate to the network use bitcoin-qt.

okay, but it would be nice if someone makes a modified version of bitcoin-qt for more connections .. I only get 40 connections or something..
Also an external IP detection every 10 minutes for users with a dynamic IP would be nice !
My ISP changes my IP every 24h .. and than the connections drop to 8 because the client doesn't update his external IP !!!!  
I already posted this problem in the dev-forum but I think it got ignored.. 

[gweedo]

can someone compile this for windows? https://github.com/TvdW/bitpeer

Bitpeer is an experimental Bitcoin relay server. Its event-driven architecture makes it extremely fast, and it was designed to be very lightweight.

this is the creator: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/users/4358/tom-van-der-woerdt

the creator donates 250GB a day with this software to the network !!!!!

I wrote my own lightweight tx/block relay that can easily handle up to 10000 incoming connections as long as the network connection allows it. I then tweaked it to ensure a high amount of connections (incoming or outgoing, currently ~750) and since it's usually first with relaying blocks/transactions, that causes a lot of network traffic. – Tom van der Woerdt

i need this for windows or linux  but I have no idea how to build this .. 

Uhmmm this is a huge security risk. If you want to use a central server I suggest using electrum which has window binaries.

This is a horrible program it does nothing and can be easily converted to a cancer node and hurt the network.

If you want to donate to the network use bitcoin-qt.

okay, but it would be nice if someone makes a modified version of bitcoin-qt for more connections .. I only get 40 connections or something..
Also an external IP detection every 10 minutes for users with a dynamic IP would be nice !
My ISP changes my IP every 24h .. and than the connections drop to 8 because the client doesn't update his external IP !!!!   
I already posted this problem in the dev-forum but I think it got ignored.. 

The stock bitcoind, accepts default 125 connections, if you want to change that you can add

Code:

maxconnections=200

To your bitcoin conf file. Remember bitcoin is P2P so your not going be be able to connect to a lot of nodes on it's own. You may want to look at

Code:

connect=<ip address>

So you can connect to more people.