Bitcoin Core inbound connections

Hey guys! :slight_smile: I want to ask if it’s normal to see just outbound connections in bitcoin core logs when “make public” option is switched on. I was looking for some inbound connections to check if things work properly.
Thanks a lot for an explanation. Just one confused ex umbrel user here lol .))

If you have switched on “make public” option in config you should see both outbound and inbound connections in the logs. Outbound connections are connections initiated by your node to other nodes on the network, while inbound connections are connections initiated by other nodes to your node.

Yes, I was expecting that when I was looking into the logs, but I can see just outbound connections. I was using bitcoin node on umbrel before and there were a lot of inbound peers so I was expecting the same situation. My internet connection is still the same with the same router settings so nothing is blocked from that side I hope.
Any ideas where can be a problem? Or maybe it’s not a problem at all, I don’t know. I just want to be fully interacting with the bitcoin network. :slight_smile:

Same here, just had a look through my logs & no inbound peers…?

If you have clearnet allowed for your Bitcoin Core service on StartOS, it’s going to reach out to both clearnet and onion-based peers.

Receiving inbound connections is a whole other story – between you and your peers you have your router and StartOS’s architecture. Even with clearnet activated, you’re not running a clearnet node.

But my node has to be reachable for inbound connection via tor for those onion-based nodes. Am I right?

Yes, you can see it in Bitcoin Core → Interfaces. The next question is discoverability.

So bitcoin node on StartOS works somehow different from bitcoin node on Umbrel? I had a lot of inbound connections shown in rpc explorer on Umbrel (connected to the same router as StartOS). Can I do something to be discoverable by onion-based nodes?

What is your Bitcoin config? Specifically for “Make Public” and “Disable Peer Discovery”

If these are set correctly then the most likely issue would be that you have a problem with your tor connection and folks cannot connect inbound.

“Make Public” ON
“Disable Peer Discovery” OFF

When I test the peer interface tor address with port 8333 on bitnodes.io, it works with no problem. It looks like it is reachable, but not discoverable for other nodes.

You can check your tor logs to see if you have any issues there, but if you are live on the tor network, then peers ought to be able to connect to you. Why do you say it is not discoverable?

I just assume that because I don’t see any inbound peers.

If you ssh in, exec into Bitcoin container, and run bitcoin-cli getpeerinfo it will tell you whether your peers are inbound or outbound

I finally found a moment to try ssh into bitcoin service and I can see inbound connections. So everything works as expected, It’s just not showing any info about inbound connections in the logs. In the future release, it would be nice to see some basic peer stats in bitcoin core properties.
thanks a lot :slight_smile:

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You might like to keep an eye on this PR to the Bitcoin Package :wink:

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many thanks for in / outs in the properties! :heart_eyes: no complains now :grin:

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