===== How to run a Bootstrap Node =====

==== tox-bootstrapd - Tox Bootstrap Daemon (recommended) ====

Tox Bootstrap Daemon, or tox-bootstrapd for short, is a highly configurable Linux/Unix daemon that acts as a bootstrap node.

tox-bootstrapd resides in the toxcore repository and is built along with the toxcore as long as you [[https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore/blob/master/INSTALL.md|make sure that you have building of tox-bootstrapd enabled and all of the dependencies required by tox-bootstrapd]] installed.

Once you have built tox-boostrapd, you can [[https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore/tree/master/other/bootstrap_daemon|follow the instructions in its README file]] on how to set it up with SysVinit, systemd or Docker, along with sample SysVInit init script, systemd unit file and Docker Dockerfile.

You can also call

<code>tox-boostrapd --help</code>

to see all available command-line options. Most of the options are set in a config file though.

==== DHT_bootstrap - Simple Bootstrap Program ====

DHT_bootstrap is a very simple bootstrap program that runs in the foreground. In contrast to tox-boostrapd, which also can run in the foreground, it provides almost no configuration options but it is not restricted to running on just Linux/Unix, it can run on Windows and pretty much everything else toxcore runs on. Thus this is a preffered way of running a bootstrap node on a non Linux/Unix system.

DHT_bootstrap resides in the toxcore repository and is built along with the toxcore as long as you [[https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore/blob/master/INSTALL.md|make sure that you have building of DHT_bootstrap enabled]].

Once built, you can call

<code>DHT_bootstrap -h</code>

to see the available options.

DHT_bootstrap allows bootstrapping off just one other bootstrap node, address, port and key of which you can provide as the first 3 arguments to it.