Does my Bitcoin-Qt client accept incoming connections?

[Shawshank]

How can I be sure that my Bitcoin-Qt client is accepting incoming connections? I thought I was accepting them, but I can't see my IP address in http://blockchain.info/connected-nodes .

With emule, for example, it was easy to know, because it showed a green arrow when you were accepting incoming connections and a yellow one when you didn't. I can't find anything similar on Bitcoin-Qt, though.

By the way, I don't have UPnP enabled on my computer.

[Foxpup]

In the bottom right corner, the icon second from the right indicates whether you are connected or not. Hover your cursor over it to see exactly how many peers you are connected to. And blockchain.info only shows nodes connected directly to blockchain.info, not all the nodes on the Bitcoin network.

[Shawshank]

When I hover the icon on the right it say "8 active connections to the Bitcoin network" (translated from Spanish).

However, I believe those are outgoing connections. If I wanted to contribute to the network I would need to be accepting incoming connections. Where can I find if I am accepting any?

[theymos]

You're probably not accepting connections if you have 8 peers. That's the number of outgoing connections that Bitcoin makes.

There are online tools (like this one) you can use to see if your port 8333 is open.

[Shawshank]

You're probably not accepting connections if you have 8 peers. That's the number of outgoing connections that Bitcoin makes.

There are online tools (like this one) you can use to see if your port 8333 is open.

The tool you have provided says port 8333 is closed on my IP address.

However, if I run netstat on my Windows 7 machine it says it is in fact listening locally on port 8333. The other 8 addresses are the Bitcoin nodes I am connected to:

C:\Users\Limitado>netstat -an | find ":8333"
  TCP    0.0.0.0:8333           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49368    50.53.152.59:8333      ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49374    79.169.93.230:8333     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49375    98.238.214.225:8333    ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49376    83.169.39.90:8333      ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49381    78.90.34.237:8333      ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49389    24.253.224.165:8333    ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49403    85.214.144.81:8333     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:49404    100.1.142.85:8333      ESTABLISHED

I suppose I need to open port 8333 on my router. It would be great if Bitcoin-qt client informed about active incoming connections...

Thanks!

[rjk]

Most routers have NAT, which breaks incoming connections unless you specifically create a rule to allow them. It will usually do something like "allow all connections on port 8333 to go to port 8333 on this internal IP address" when you have properly created the rule.

[Shawshank]

I have got it currently working. Once I allowed the incoming connection on my router, I checked http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/ and port 8333 showed up as open for my IP.

My Bitcoin-Qt client now says 14 active connections to the Bitcoin network:

C:\Users\Limitado>netstat -an | find ":8333"
  TCP    0.0.0.0:8333           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     71.245.166.189:49574   ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     88.6.209.227:28040     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     92.53.76.96:51141      ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     109.129.6.209:41591    ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     176.9.5.91:52648       ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:8333     195.72.200.194:63911   ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:51847    75.74.247.197:8333     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:51848    24.253.224.165:8333    ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:51855    129.241.125.82:8333    ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:52037    70.171.181.49:8333     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:52044    99.29.0.238:8333       ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:52849    75.89.67.17:8333       ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:52925    108.2.213.201:8333     ESTABLISHED
  TCP    192.168.0.192:54405    67.215.217.178:8333    ESTABLISHED

Much better now! Thanks!