Community Seed Servers

Seed servers help TALER Blockchain nodes discover peers when joining the network. TALER Blockchain uses a combination of hardcoded seeds and a community-maintained seed list to ensure reliable connectivity and decentralization.

How Peer Discovery Works

When a TALER Blockchain node starts, it needs to find other nodes to connect to. This happens in several stages:

1. Hardcoded DNS Seeds - Built into the node binary, these are DNS names that resolve to known TALER Blockchain nodes
2. Hardcoded Fixed IP Seeds - A fallback list of IP addresses compiled into the binary
3. Community Seed List - A remote bootstrap.json file fetched from GitHub on startup, maintained by the community
4. Peer Exchange - Once connected, nodes share peer addresses with each other

The community seed list supplements hardcoded seeds, improving network resilience and allowing new nodes to be added without a software update.

Community Seed List

The community-maintained seed list lives on GitHub:

Repository: github.com/abkvme/taler-seeds

The node fetches bootstrap.json from this repository on startup. The file contains a list of community-contributed nodes:

{
  "nodes": [
    {"host": "talerseed01.taler.tech", "port": 23153},
    {"host": "talerseed02.taler.tech", "port": 23153}
  ]
}

Each entry has:

• host - DNS name or IP address of the node
• port - (optional) P2P port, defaults to 23153

Viewing Seed Servers in the GUI

The TALER Coin Qt wallet includes an Info tab that displays all seed servers and their connectivity status:

• Hardcoded Seeds - DNS and fixed IP seeds built into the binary
• Community Seeds - Nodes from the GitHub bootstrap.json list
• Discovered Peers - Currently connected peers with version info

Click Refresh to run connectivity checks against all seed servers. Green dots indicate reachable nodes, red dots indicate unreachable ones.

Adding Your Node to the Seed List

If you run a TALER Blockchain node with reliable uptime on a static IP or DNS name, you can contribute it to the community seed list. This helps other nodes discover peers and strengthens the network.

Requirements

• Your node must be running TALER (default port 23153, custom ports supported)
• Port must be open and reachable from the internet
• Your node should have reliable uptime

Steps

1. Fork the repository: github.com/abkvme/taler-seeds
2. Clone your fork:

   git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/taler-seeds.git
   cd taler-seeds
   

3. Create a branch:

   git checkout -b add-my-node
   

4. Edit bootstrap.json - add your node entry to the nodes array
5. Commit and push:

   git add bootstrap.json
   git commit -m "Add my node to bootstrap list"
   git push origin add-my-node
   

6. Create a Pull Request at github.com/abkvme/taler-seeds with a brief description of your node (location, uptime, etc.)

Submissions are validated automatically by CI. Once merged, all new TALER Blockchain nodes starting up will discover your node.

Official Seed Infrastructure

The TALER Blockchain project maintains seed servers on the taler.tech domain:

These are included in the community seed list and serve as baseline infrastructure for the network.

Network Ports

For your node to be discoverable as a seed, ensure the following port is accessible:

• Mainnet: Port 23153 (TCP)
• Testnet: Port 33153 (TCP)

Configure your firewall to allow incoming connections on the appropriate port.

Related

• Running a Node - Full guide to setting up a TALER Blockchain node
• Node CLI - Command-line daemon configuration
• Docker Deployment - Running a node in Docker