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Bootstrap Nodes

In order to facilitate quick connections to other people using Tox, Tox employs bootstrap nodes that each client may connect to in order to retrieve a list of clients currently connected to the pool.

Real time node status

To see the real time status of the nodes below visit https://nodes.tox.chat/

Active Nodes List

Below are a list of active nodes that you can connect to. This list is actively maintained.

IPv4 IPv6 Port Public Key Maintainer Location
144.217.167.73 NONE 33445 7E5668E0EE09E19F320AD47902419331FFEE147BB3606769CFBE921A2A2FD34C velusip CA
tox.abilinski.com NONE 33445 10C00EB250C3233E343E2AEBA07115A5C28920E9C8D29492F6D00B29049EDC7E Anthony Bilinski CA
198.199.98.108 2604:a880:1:20::32f:1001 33445 BEF0CFB37AF874BD17B9A8F9FE64C75521DB95A37D33C5BDB00E9CF58659C04F Cody US
tox.kurnevsky.net tox.kurnevsky.net 33445 82EF82BA33445A1F91A7DB27189ECFC0C013E06E3DA71F588ED692BED625EC23 kurnevsky NL
205.185.115.131 NONE 53 3091C6BEB2A993F1C6300C16549FABA67098FF3D62C6D253828B531470B53D68 GDR! US
tox2.abilinski.com tox2.abilinski.com 33445 7A6098B590BDC73F9723FC59F82B3F9085A64D1B213AAF8E610FD351930D052D Anthony Bilinski US
46.101.197.175 2a03:b0c0:3:d0::ac:5001 33445 CD133B521159541FB1D326DE9850F5E56A6C724B5B8E5EB5CD8D950408E95707 kotelnik DE
tox1.mf-net.eu tox1.mf-net.eu 33445 B3E5FA80DC8EBD1149AD2AB35ED8B85BD546DEDE261CA593234C619249419506 2mf DE
tox01.ky0uraku.xyz tox01.ky0uraku.xyz 33445 FD04EB03ABC5FC5266A93D37B4D6D6171C9931176DC68736629552D8EF0DE174 ky0uraku NL
195.201.7.101 NONE 33445 B84E865125B4EC4C368CD047C72BCE447644A2DC31EF75BD2CDA345BFD310107 tux1973 DE
tox4.plastiras.org NONE 33445 836D1DA2BE12FE0E669334E437BE3FB02806F1528C2B2782113E0910C7711409 Tha_14 MD
5.19.249.240 NONE 38296 DA98A4C0CD7473A133E115FEA2EBDAEEA2EF4F79FD69325FC070DA4DE4BA3238 Tox daemon RU
188.225.9.167 209:dead:ded:4991:49f3:b6c0:9869:3019 33445 1911341A83E02503AB1FD6561BD64AF3A9D6C3F12B5FBB656976B2E678644A67 Nikat RU
122.116.39.151 2001:b011:8:2f22:1957:7f9d:e31f:96dd 33445 5716530A10D362867C8E87EE1CD5362A233BAFBBA4CF47FA73B7CAD368BD5E6E miaoski TW
173.232.195.131 NONE 33445 3F7D1765E54FADEE08DEDDFECCF8ACF38C52580D4DCA77B30CC3E478F2C50A34 DEADBEEF PL
NONE 2607:f130:0:f8::4c85:a645 33445 8AFE1FC6426E5B77AB80318ED64F5F76341695B9FB47AB8AC9537BF5EE9E9D29 Busindre US
tox3.plastiras.org tox3.plastiras.org 33445 4B031C96673B6FF123269FF18F2847E1909A8A04642BBECD0189AC8AEEADAF64 Tha_14 DE
104.225.141.59 NONE 43334 933BA20B2E258B4C0D475B6DECE90C7E827FE83EFA9655414E7841251B19A72C Gabe US
139.162.110.188 2400:8902::f03c:93ff:fe69:bf77 33445 F76A11284547163889DDC89A7738CF271797BF5E5E220643E97AD3C7E7903D55 ToxTom CA
198.98.49.206 2605:6400:10:caa:1:be:a:7001 33445 28DB44A3CEEE69146469855DFFE5F54DA567F5D65E03EFB1D38BBAEFF2553255 Cüber US
tox2.mf-net.eu tox2.mf-net.eu 33445 70EA214FDE161E7432530605213F18F7427DC773E276B3E317A07531F548545F 2mf DE
172.105.109.31 2600:3c04::f03c:92ff:fe30:5df 33445 D46E97CF995DC1820B92B7D899E152A217D36ABE22730FEA4B6BF1BFC06C617C amr CA
91.146.66.26 NONE 33445 B5E7DAC610DBDE55F359C7F8690B294C8E4FCEC4385DE9525DBFA5523EAD9D53 Tox daemon EE
tox2.plastiras.org tox2.plastiras.org 33445 B6626D386BE7E3ACA107B46F48A5C4D522D29281750D44A0CBA6A2721E79C951 Tha_14 DE
tox02.ky0uraku.xyz tox02.ky0uraku.xyz 33445 D3D6D7C0C7009FC75406B0A49E475996C8C4F8BCE1E6FC5967DE427F8F600527 ky0uraku FR
kusoneko.moe kusoneko.moe 33445 BE7ED53CD924813507BA711FD40386062E6DC6F790EFA122C78F7CDEEE4B6D1B Kusoneko CA
NONE 200:832f:2e56:91a6:678e:aaaf:80bf:4a8a 33445 444361B1717AD5E10D9C03EA1C714A846C9D3B16A875186D0034DC516A49F013 Dima (Yggdrasil) RU
172.104.215.182 2600:3c03::f03c:93ff:fe7f:6096 33445 DA2BD927E01CD05EBCC2574EBE5BEBB10FF59AE0B2105A7D1E2B40E49BB20239 zero-one US
tox.initramfs.io tox.initramfs.io 33445 3F0A45A268367C1BEA652F258C85F4A66DA76BCAA667A49E770BCC4917AB6A25 initramfs TW
tox.plastiras.org tox.plastiras.org 33445 8E8B63299B3D520FB377FE5100E65E3322F7AE5B20A0ACED2981769FC5B43725 Tha_14 LU
193.168.141.224 NONE 33445 8E82CF0D7CC42B63748C01DD61EAA490BC35DBDB177942D423DC96D40762C01D DEADBEEF RO
188.214.122.30 NONE 33445 2A9F7A620581D5D1B09B004624559211C5ED3D1D712E8066ACDB0896A7335705 turambar EG

If you want a list of these nodes in a more machine-readable format, try using the JSON output provided by https://nodes.tox.chat.

If you are a developer and you are considering making your application automatically download the list of nodes either off this wiki page or https://nodes.tox.chat, we strongly advise you to cache the list of nodes your application downloads on user side, in order to reduce the number of requests our servers are getting. It's also a good idea to not rely on these lists to be available (e.g. our websites might be blocked by a firewall), which can be solved by shipping your application with a pre-set list of bootstrap nodes and allowing users to add their own list of bootstrap nodes through a user interface.

FAQ

What is the purpose of bootstrap nodes?

If you are familiar with the concept of DHT, they are your regular DHT bootstrap nodes. If you are not familiar with DHT, then a more detailed explanation follows.

In Tox, every client communicates with other Tox clients, together creating an interconnected network. This Tox network is used to discover other peers in the network and communicate with them, which enables you to send/receive friend requests or get notified when your friend comes online. To connect to the Tox network, a client needs to connect to at least one other client that is connected to the Tox network, from which point it can ask the client it connected to for more clients it can connect to and keep repeating this process to discover more and more clients. A bootstrap node is what a client connects to first if it doesn't know of any other nodes in the network, thus it's required that bootstrap nodes are highly available (are online most of the time), have static IP addresses or use domain names, don't change port numbers, have static public keys and so on. While technically any Tox client can be used as a bootstrap node, the usage patterns of a Tox client by an average user violate the previously mentioned requirements – the user might want to shut down their computer, they might have dynamic IP addresses, their client might be changing public keys, and so on, therefore we need Tox clients dedicated to the task of being used as bootstrap nodes. Because bootstrap nodes would generally run on servers, they are made to have as small footprint as possible – they don't support most features a Tox client supports, they perform only some basic network functionality required for clients to discover other clients.

How do I run a bootstrap node?

How do I get my bootstrap node added to the table above?

  1. Subscribe to the bootstrap mailing list, which is low-traffic announcement-only mailing list for cases when updating a bootstrap node would result in better network performance, toxcore changes DHT in non-backwards-compatible way or some vulnerability affecting bootstrap nodes is discovered.
  2. Send an email to node-request@tox.chat requesting your node to be added to the table of bootstrap nodes. Mention the email address you used to subscribe to the mailing list and provide information for the fields of the table. Sample email template:
    Mailing list email address:
    IPv4:
    IPv6:
    Port:
    Public Key:
    Maintainer:
    Location:

We check the mail about once a week, so expect it might take a few days for you to get a reply.

Note that nodes that are offline for long periods of time or use a very old version of toxcore are subject to removal from the table.

How much bandwidth is required to run a bootstrap node?

Generally it depends on popularity of your bootstrap node.

At the moment of writing this (August 4th, 2016), you may expect 700GiB of total traffic (1/2 incoming, 1/2 outgoing) per month for a very popular bootstrap node, one that was in the table for years and is actively used by many clients. The amount of traffic increases over time.

If you are familiar with software development, there is an interesting idea for a project that would help us quite a bit.

You might have noticed that the process of adding a node to the table above is somewhat tedious: a person running the node needs to subscribe to a mailing list, send an email, someone must review that email, possibly ask additional questions and finally edit the wiki table adding the node. We can get rid of this process entirely. If we traverse the Tox DHT network, we can collect data such as IP addresses, public keys and port numbers of all nodes in the network. Collect that data over time, and we will be able to identify nodes that are online most of the time, don't change their IP address, use the same port and use the same public key, i.e. the perfect candidates for being bootstrap nodes. Make a webpage similar to https://nodes.tox.chat/ and show only nodes that are the perfect candidates for being bootstrap nodes. Any person running a bootstrap node long enough will show up on such table automatically, without any interaction required. There is already a project that does something similar – Tox Statistic project similarly traverses Tox DHT network, collects data on nodes in Tox DHT network, and displays it on a web page, but for statistical purposes.

If you are interested in working on this project, feel free to come to our development IRC channel to discuss it. iphy, Impyy, JFreegman and nurupo would probably be the best people to discuss this with.

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