Hey SN!
I have this option disabled on my Bitcoin Node running on Umbrel:
Incoming Connections Broadcast your node to the Bitcoin network to help other nodes access the blockchain. You may need to set up port forwarding on your router to allow incoming connections from clearnet-only peers.
Is it correct to say that without this enabled, I’m not really helping the network but rather am just providing myself a way to verify transactions myself? Am I really just leeching network capacity by receiving messages from other nodes but not providing data out?
Thanks in advance for any help!
By default a node will have a max 8-10 outbound connections. That means maximum 10 other new nodes could download from your synced node, blocks.
By opening the port 8332 you will increase that number of outbound connections. You can still limit it if you see that your bandwidth and RAM memory is going crazy (because it will) by adding in bitcoin.conf 2 lines:
maxconnections=30 maxuploadtarget=5000
In this way you can keep a certain level of "sharing" if you want.
I would not suggest to do that, only if you have a dedicated machine for such thing and a good connection.
IT WILL SLOW DOWN YOUR ENTIRE NETWORK. Be aware. 8-10 peers is more than enough to "give" to others, no worry.
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Thank you for your response, it was very helpful!
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