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authorVasil Dimov <vd@FreeBSD.org>2022-06-09 12:04:33 +0200
committerVasil Dimov <vd@FreeBSD.org>2022-08-16 13:02:19 +0200
commit47c0d02f126c73755288c3084402098567964329 (patch)
tree65be8ca6088da9b50f7f2ab5f3168afe8d7ff6d3 /doc
parent3914e472f5685c29aa3d1c6dc5af9a758313d6c1 (diff)
downloadbitcoin-47c0d02f126c73755288c3084402098567964329.tar.xz
doc: document I2P transient addresses usage in doc/i2p.md
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/i2p.md26
1 files changed, 22 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/i2p.md b/doc/i2p.md
index 39f65c4e5f..1599c2fe0f 100644
--- a/doc/i2p.md
+++ b/doc/i2p.md
@@ -47,9 +47,26 @@ In a typical situation, this suffices:
bitcoind -i2psam=127.0.0.1:7656
```
-The first time Bitcoin Core connects to the I2P router, its I2P address (and
-corresponding private key) will be automatically generated and saved in a file
-named `i2p_private_key` in the Bitcoin Core data directory.
+The first time Bitcoin Core connects to the I2P router, if
+`-i2pacceptincoming=1`, then it will automatically generate a persistent I2P
+address and its corresponding private key. The private key will be saved in a
+file named `i2p_private_key` in the Bitcoin Core data directory. The persistent
+I2P address is used for accepting incoming connections and for making outgoing
+connections if `-i2pacceptincoming=1`. If `-i2pacceptincoming=0` then only
+outbound I2P connections are made and a different transient I2P address is used
+for each connection to improve privacy.
+
+## Persistent vs transient I2P addresses
+
+In I2P connections, the connection receiver sees the I2P address of the
+connection initiator. This is unlike the Tor network where the recipient does
+not know who is connecting to them and can't tell if two connections are from
+the same peer or not.
+
+If an I2P node is not accepting incoming connections, then Bitcoin Core uses
+random, one-time, transient I2P addresses for itself for outbound connections
+to make it harder to discriminate, fingerprint or analyze it based on its I2P
+address.
## Additional configuration options related to I2P
@@ -85,7 +102,8 @@ one of the networks has issues.
## I2P-related information in Bitcoin Core
-There are several ways to see your I2P address in Bitcoin Core:
+There are several ways to see your I2P address in Bitcoin Core if accepting
+incoming I2P connections (`-i2pacceptincoming`):
- in the "Local addresses" output of CLI `-netinfo`
- in the "localaddresses" output of RPC `getnetworkinfo`
- in the debug log (grep for `AddLocal`; the I2P address ends in `.b32.i2p`)