Insights from the CoreDev Corner: Configuring Ports of the æternity Node

With this post we start a series of Insights from the CoreDev Corner blog posts where we discuss technical details related to the operation of the Roma network. This post is primarily aimed at operators of æternity nodes and addresses configuration issues that affect peer-to-peer connectivity between the nodes.

Dear miners and node operators,

While monitoring the p2p connectivity of our network we have noticed that there is a large number of æternity nodes that do not expose any ports for incoming connections.

It is very important that a node not only can connect to other nodes, but also accept incoming connections: the more peer connections (both inbound+outbound) the node has, the better its overall p2p network latency (i.e., block propagation time) will be.

By default, the node listens on TCP port 3015 : see sync > port parameter in the YAML configuration file (en example here).

When using defaults, please, make sure that:

Port 3015 is opened on your firewall/router. YAML configuration file does not include sync -> external_port configuration.

In the majority of cases, sync section of the YAML configuration file should not include external_port parameter and look like this:

sync:

port: 3015

where port 3015 is open on your firewall or router.

In case you are not using default configuration (e.g., advanced NAT configuration that involves port forwarding), make sure that sync -> external_port is pointing at the TCP port on your public IP address.

Consult documentation for a detailed explanation. If you need support, please start a topic or join an existing one in the Forum.

Thank you for making æternity better!

The AE Dev Team