Set up Bitcoin Core v0.21.1; incoming connection 0

[cryptogalaxy]

I set up Bitcoin Core v0.21.1, did the initial block download and is now up to date at block 700,954. However, I see no incoming connections.

I'm not running vpn. I have bitdefender firewall on my computer that is allowing both way connection over any network.

My bitcoin.conf is set with maxconnections=20 and maxuploadtarget=3000 to limit bandwidth use.

Number of connections says 0 in and 10 out (I thought only 8 were allowed out?).

I'm unsure about this terminology. Is outgoing connection for me to get new block information from other nodes and is incoming connection for me to broadcast my own transactions out there if I were to use my full node with my hardware wallet?

Help is appreciated. Thanks.

[RapTarX]

I'm not sure but this may help you a bit- https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/43981/allowing-incoming-connection-on-bitcoin-core

[BlackHatCoiner]

Would you mind dropping us your configuration file? (obviously with a blanked password)

(I thought only 8 were allowed out?).

That's a hardcoded value, but I believe you can increase it if you added nodes with addnode in your bitcoin.conf.

Is outgoing connection for me to get new block information from other nodes and is incoming connection for me to broadcast my own transactions out there if I were to use my full node with my hardware wallet?

You can both broadcast transactions and get block information by not accepting incoming connections. The nodes that accept those are the ones the network lives from. For instance, when you want to sync your node, they'll send you the blocks. The network couldn't be consisting of nodes that accept only outgoing transactions. Those are mostly ran for personal reasons. (Such as for privacy)

I'm not 100% sure of the above part, so please, correct me if I've written something false.

[ranochigo]

Number of connections says 0 in and 10 out (I thought only 8 were allowed out?).

There are two additional block-only relay nodes ontop of the usual 8 nodes, which is why there is 10 now. Anchor nodes were introduced in the more recent versions to protect against eclipse attack. You cannot increase the outgoing connections through addnodes.

I'm unsure about this terminology. Is outgoing connection for me to get new block information from other nodes and is incoming connection for me to broadcast my own transactions out there if I were to use my full node with my hardware wallet?

You don't need incoming peers. Your connections are bidirectional, meaning that you will receive and send data like any other nodes, be it block data or transactions, regardless of your incoming/outgoing connection counts. The incoming nodes only means that certain nodes are connecting to you, to receive and transmit information. In a similar sense, you are connecting to nodes that allows incoming connections.

You definitely don't need incoming peers to use Bitcoin. If you're behind a NAT, you have to port forward your port 8333.

The network cannot survive if there is no peers that would accept incoming connections, because that would simply mean no one can connect to each other. Privacy is unaffected by your incoming/outgoing connection counts. There are countermeasures against topological analysis within Bitcoin Core.

[ABCbits]

I'm unsure about this terminology. Is outgoing connection for me to get new block information from other nodes and is incoming connection for me to broadcast my own transactions out there if I were to use my full node with my hardware wallet?

Incoming connection means other peer/node which connected to your node, whereas outgoing connection is the opposite. As @ranochigo said, the connection is bidirectional which means your node can do every task without incoming connection.

You definitely don't need incoming peers to use Bitcoin. If you're behind a NAT, you have to port forward your port 8333.

Alternatively you could add upnp=1 to bitcoin.conf if your modem support and enable UPnP (Universal Play and Plug).

[HCP]

My bitcoin.conf is set with maxconnections=20 and maxuploadtarget=3000 to limit bandwidth use.

Number of connections says 0 in and 10 out (I thought only 8 were allowed out?).

Do you have listen=1 in your bitcoin.conf or are you using -listen=1 on the command line? If not, that would probably explain the lack of incoming connections.

[nc50lc]

Do you have listen=1 in your bitcoin.conf or are you using -listen=1 on the command line? If not, that would probably explain the lack of incoming connections.

Isn't "listen=1" the default setting?
If so, not having "listen=0" or a blank config file is as good as adding listen=1 to the config/start parameter.