List of good seed nodes to put in bitcoin.conf?

[a.miner]

Where can I find a list of good nodes to put in bitcoin.conf using addnode?

There is a list at nodes.bitcoin.st showing nodes that have been online for over a year, but there aren’t many nodes there.

What do you put in your bifcoin.conf?

[TierNolan]

You shouldn't really need to manually do it, as long as you have an up to date client.

There is a large set of hard coded seed nodes built in.

[gmaxwell]

Please don't just stuff addnodes in to your configuration for random public nodes— unless that kind of usage has been solicited. If you do that you'll cause unequal load for nodes that people have listed online.

[a.miner]

Please don't just stuff addnodes in to your configuration for random public nodes— unless that kind of usage has been solicited. If you do that you'll cause unequal load for nodes that people have listed online.

Point taken.

So what's the answer?  Every new node goes to the same set of hard-coded seed nodes?

That would lead to a hugely unequal load...

[TierNolan]

So what's the answer?  Every new node goes to the same set of hard-coded seed nodes?

That would lead to a hugely unequal load...

The sequence is

- try peers you heard about/connected to within the last few days

- then try the hard coded seeds

- then the DNS seed addresses


This keeps load on the DNS nodes to a minimum.  There are only 4-5 of those, but they have dns names (seed.somedomain.com or something). 

The hard coded seeds are next.  There are 600 of those.  They are taken from a list of nodes that have very high up-time over the previous year or so.

The nodes that you see from the addr messages could be any active node.  This means that except for the initial connection, you end up connecting to random nodes on the network.

[a.miner]

The sequence is

- try peers you heard about/connected to within the last few days

- then try the hard coded seeds

- then the DNS seed addresses


This keeps load on the DNS nodes to a minimum.  There are only 4-5 of those, but they have dns names (seed.somedomain.com or something). 

The hard coded seeds are next.  There are 600 of those.  They are taken from a list of nodes that have very high up-time over the previous year or so.

The nodes that you see from the addr messages could be any active node.  This means that except for the initial connection, you end up connecting to random nodes on the network.

I've seen the DNS seeds in the source code, and I thought "hard-coded seeds" was just another name for these DNS seeds.

So, where do I find these 600 hard-coded seeds?

Also, regarding  these "peers you heard about within the last few days" ... where do they come from?

That is, how do I hear about them?  Is there a list of such nodes on the web or something?  Should I be putting these in the bitcoin.conf file with addnode?

[TierNolan]

I've seen the DNS seeds in the source code, and I thought "hard-coded seeds" was just another name for these DNS seeds.

So, where do I find these 600 hard-coded seeds?

They only have them for the main network.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/chainparams.cpp#L21

Also, regarding  these "peers you heard about within the last few days" ... where do they come from?

You can ask your peers to send you addresses.  I think nodes broadcast their address every so often.

They use the "addr" message.

That is, how do I hear about them?  Is there a list of such nodes on the web or something?  Should I be putting these in the bitcoin.conf file with addnode?

No, just being connected to the network is enough.  Your peers will send you addr messages every so often.

If you have less than 1000, I think your node will ask for them. 

The addr message has the last time the node was seen as part of the message and also if it is a full node or an SPV node.

[zvs]

you can addnode=5.9.24.81 , that's mine.  i don't mind.  it's at like 400/1000

[a.miner]

They only have them for the main network.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/chainparams.cpp#L21

Aha!  I have seen that table before.  I just didn't realize what it is.

So the best thing to do is to start bitcoind with no addnode statements at all then, right?

[TierNolan]

So the best thing to do is to start bitcoind with no addnode statements at all then, right?

Right, unless you have an old client and the hard coded and DNS seeds aren't working.