How many ZCash full node are there?

harryhalpin · July 25, 2020, 4:46pm

I am interested in determining how many full nodes in ZCash there are. I currently get four from ZChain explorer, so that seems to be a bit low.

ChileBob · July 25, 2020, 4:54pm

I look after six…I’m sure there are many others

Shawn · July 25, 2020, 4:56pm

Yes, that explorer is not correct and needs to be updated.

Unfortunately there is no central registry of nodes, nor do they have named identities to begin with. Full nodes do maintain a database of IP addresses of peers they know about, but that is not, and is not intended to be, a comprehensive list of all nodes on the network.

The Zchain explorer was displaying a list of nodes it had seen over a given period of time, but even that is limited to what it can “see” ie: nodes behind NAT or over Tor may not show correctly if at all.

str4d · July 29, 2020, 11:10am

My DNS seeder (dnsseed.str4d.xyz) is currently serving 211 zcashd nodes, which it determines are “good” according to these metrics:

github.com

zcash/zcash-seeder/blob/6a9baef6dd17f5bffb67de2edd17799f8a182be0/db.h#L104-L120


      
          bool IsGood() const {
            if (ip.GetPort() != GetDefaultPort()) return false;
            if (!(services & NODE_NETWORK)) return false;
            if (!ip.IsRoutable()) return false;
            if (clientVersion && clientVersion < REQUIRE_VERSION) return false;
            if (blocks && blocks < GetRequireHeight()) return false;
          
          
  if (total <= 3 && success * 2 >= total) return true;
          
          
  if (stat2H.reliability > 0.85 && stat2H.count > 2) return true;
            if (stat8H.reliability > 0.70 && stat8H.count > 4) return true;
            if (stat1D.reliability > 0.55 && stat1D.count > 8) return true;
            if (stat1W.reliability > 0.45 && stat1W.count > 16) return true;
            if (stat1M.reliability > 0.35 && stat1M.count > 32) return true;
            
            return false;
          }

GetRequireHeight() currently just returns 0, so partially-synced nodes are not being filtered out. REQUIRE_VERSION is set to the minimum version for the current network (currently 170011 for Heartwood support).