[Bitcoin-development] About the small number of bitcoin nodes

[Raúl Martínez]

About the small number of bitcoin nodes:
Hi, I read the message that Mike Hearn sent to this mailing list some days
ago (2014-04-07 11:34:43) related to the number of bitcoin full nodes.

As an owner of two Bitcoin Nodes, one in my home computer and one in a
dedicated server, I believe I can contribute with some of my thoughts and
ideas:

- Allow users to view the bandwith used by Bitcoin Core:
This is available in the Bitcoin Core GUI (btw, when the computer is
restarted the data gets reseted) but I cant find it in the bitcoind
commandline, people that run nodes want to see the amount of GB that they
have "donated" to the network.

- Educate users about the correct setup of a bitcoin node:
Add a page in the bitcoin.org website with a tutorial about running Bitcoin
Core with the ports opened, about runing bitcoind, etc. This guide shoud
not be for regular users but for advanced ones.

- bitcoind and Bitcoin Core should create a bitcoin.conf file on the first
start:
The first time the software should create a default config file with a
random RCP password and username (user can change it later) and the config
file should be commented so the user can know how to change configurations.
This is very useful in setups without GUI, for example in Ubuntu Server.

- bitcoind and Bitcoin Core should be in Linux repos:
People want to type "yum install bitcoind" or "apt-get install bitcoind"
and install bitcoin. No one wants to follow a tutorial made by somewho
saying that you have to add external repos to install bitcoin in your
server.
For example Electrum has been added to Ubuntu software center recently.
Bitcoin Core an bitcoind should be on CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and Ubuntu
Server repos.

- Create a "grafical interface" for bitcoind on Linux servers:
Create a command, for example "bitcoind show" that shows a nice summary in
your Terminal (Console) with all the data that a node administrator wants
to know.
When I say "grafical interface" I mean like "top" command, an interface
made out of characters in ASCII.

- Split Bitcoin Wallet from Bitcoin Node:
I believe that this is planned, some people want to help the network and
others want to keep a wallet, someones want both.
With bitcoind you can use the option "disablewallet=1" that allows to save
some memory.

- Inform users if 8333 port is closed:
That should be more visible, I dont mean an alert or warning but some icon.

- Keep connections if bitcoind is restarted:
I noticed that if I restart bitcoind (to apply new config) my reset to 0
and take some hours to rise up to ~40. I believe that my peers should
notice that I am down for less than ~15 minutes and try to connect again
faster.
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