Configure static nodes

Static nodes are a configured set of trusted nodes. They're exempt from maximum peer limits set through the --maxpeers option.

GoQuorum attempts to maintain connections with static nodes by periodically initiating a connection to any unconnected static node.

tip

Bootnodes and static nodes are parallel methods for finding peers. Depending on your use case, you can use only bootnodes, only static nodes, or both.

To find peers, configure one or more bootnodes. To configure a specific set of peer connections, use static nodes, as described on this page.

Configure static nodes

To configure a network of static nodes:

1. List the enode URLs of the nodes in the static-nodes.json file.

   note

   When specifying enodes in static-nodes.json, you can use either DNS names or IP addresses. Only bootnodes need to be specified with IP addresses.

2. Save the static-nodes.json file in the data directory (specified by --datadir) of each node.

3. Start GoQuorum with discovery disabled using --nodiscover.

To update the list of static peers at runtime, use the admin_addPeer and admin_removePeer JSON-RPC API methods.

note

Runtime modifications of static nodes do not persist between runs. The static-nodes.json file is not updated by the admin_addPeer and admin_removePeer methods.

Nodes not in the list of the static nodes are not prevented from connecting. To prevent nodes from connecting, use permissioning.

tip

If the added peer does not appear in the peer list (returned by admin_peers), check that the supplied enode URL is correct, the node is running, and the node is listening for TCP connections on the endpoint.

static-nodes.json file

The static-nodes.json file must be in the data directory (specified by --datadir) and contain a JSON array of enode URLs.

[
  "enode://cea71cb65a471037e01508cebcc178f176f9d5267bf29507ea1f6431eb6a5dc67d086dc8dc54358a72299dab1161febc5d7af49d1609c69b42b5e54544145d4f@127.0.0.1:30303",
  "enode://ca05e940488614402705a6b6836288ea902169ecc67a89e1bd5ef94bc0d1933f20be16bc881ffb4be59f521afa8718fc26eec2b0e90f2cd0f44f99bc8103e60f@127.0.0.1:30304"
]

note

Each node has a static-nodes.json file. We recommend each node in the network has the same static-nodes.json file.