[PATCH] DNS seeding of P2P node addresses

[jgarzik]

URL: http://yyz.us/bitcoin/patch.bitcoin-dnsseed

This patch adds "-dnsseed" command line argument, which causes bitcoin to read P2P node addresses from DNS A records retrieved via lookups against a precompiled list of DNS names.

Presumably, trusted community members running long-running nodes could list their nodes here.

Also, someone might wish to create a service that examines current P2P addresses from addr.dat, and exports a random selection of fresh nodes via DNS.

[nanotube]

nice idea!

[mndrix]

For anyone testing the patch, you can also use bitseed.ndrix.com and bitseed.jjgames.com which both point to long-running nodes

[jgarzik]

in addition to hard-coded list, what do you think about my idea of having a convention of using for bootstrap a list of DNS names like
fallback.bitcoin.<tld> or bootstrap.bitcoin.<tld> for every known TLD, there are couple of hundreds of them.

Seems easier to abuse than just hardcoded trusted DNS names, where site owners proactively indicate interest in being listed.

Long term, I hope some community members step up to

• administer a domain bitseed.example.com
• use https://github.com/gavinandresen/bitcointools to dump bitcoin's address database
• select 5-6 "fresh" addresses on port 8333
• dynamically update your DNS bitseed.example.com to list those 5-6 addresses in A records

This sort of dynamic P2P sampling + export is preferred over simply listing long-running node jgarziks_node.example.com.

[jgarzik]

As of now I am hosting

#host bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 69.163.132.101
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 109.75.176.193
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 217.157.1.202
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 174.120.185.74
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 69.164.218.197
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.18.90.41
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 142.58.248.28
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 91.85.220.84
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.63.62.15
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.63.15.200

suitable hosts are taken from  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

Feel free to use for testing and in production.

Added to DNS seed list.  That's just the sort of DNS seed I was hoping for, thanks.

[twobits]

As of now I am hosting

#host bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 69.163.132.101
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 109.75.176.193
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 217.157.1.202
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 174.120.185.74
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 69.164.218.197
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.18.90.41
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 142.58.248.28
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 91.85.220.84
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.63.62.15
bitseed.bitcoin.org.uk has address 178.63.15.200

suitable hosts are taken from  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

Feel free to use for testing and in production.

Seems the  link to the patch now gives a 404 record so I can't look at it.  If I am understanding what is proposed here it seems a good idea.  However the above is not the right record type.  It should be using SRV records not A records,  this also lets the record specific the port number, so that need not be fixed.

[jgarzik]

Seems the  link to the patch now gives a 404 record so I can't look at it.  If I am understanding what is proposed here it seems a good idea.  However the above is not the right record type.  It should be using SRV records not A records,  this also lets the record specific the port number, so that need not be fixed.

SRV records would be nice...

...but it is difficult to make that work in a cross-platform manner.

"A" records have a higher Just Works(tm) value, even if we are forced to compromise and hardcode port 8333.

[theymos]

"A" records have a higher Just Works(tm) value, even if we are forced to compromise and hardcode port 8333.

It also wouldn't be too difficult to brute-force all port numbers if none of the peers support 8333 (which probably indicates that the ISP is blocking 8333).

[marcus_of_augustus]

Maybe an application for Namecoin "trust-noone" local, dns look-ups.

[tnkflx]

We could also get our own tld via http://www.opennicproject.org/...  For instance, .btc or .bitcoin or whatever

[zwierzak]

We could also get our own tld via http://www.opennicproject.org/...  For instance, .btc or .bitcoin or whatever

Rather http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page