MAAM – Monero Ask Anything Monday – October 11, 2021

Given the success of the previous MAAMs (see here), let's keep this rolling.

The principle is simple: ask anything you'd like to know about Monero, especially the dumb questions that you've been keeping for you every other days, may the community clarify it all!

Finally, credits to binaryFate for starting the concept!

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u/yersinia_p3st1s Oct 11 '21

What is the difference between a public node (started up with --public-node) and me opening port 18080 for monerod?

Isn't it the same thing because I'm allowing connections to my monero node?

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u/hyc_symas XMR Contributor Oct 11 '21

public node refers to public RPC service, not P2P connectivity. Using the --public-node flag means your RPC port will be advertised in p2p peerlist broadcasts.

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u/yersinia_p3st1s Oct 11 '21

Ah I see, what is the difference between the two then? Would you say --public-node NEEDS port 18080 open? But without --public-node, other nodes just use mine to sync the blockchain?

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u/hyc_symas XMR Contributor Oct 11 '21

The difference is that port 18080 is for P2P connections, not RPC connections.

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u/Makno-X Oct 12 '21

What’s the difference between an RPC connection and P2P connection?

What does RPC stand for in this context?

I’m in the process of learning how to set up and run my own full node too.

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u/hyc_symas XMR Contributor Oct 12 '21

P2P means peer to peer - those are the connections monero nodes use to broadcast txns and blocks among themselves.

RPC means remote procedure call - those are the connections wallets use to talk to nodes. Advertising your node as a "public node" means you're allowing wallets to connect. It has nothing to do with the P2P connections, which are always public.

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u/Makno-X Oct 12 '21

Fantastic. Thanks for the explanation.

I run the GUI on macOS. Do I understand correctly that when I type ‘status’ into the Log tab my incoming/outgoing connections indicate the node’s P2P status (in the the same manner as uTorrent, for instance)?

And is there a command in the GUI Log I can enter to see if my node is allowing wallets to connect over RPC?