Initial Vexta Core v0.1.0 release

doc/reduce-traffic.md

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+Reduce Traffic
+==============
+
+Some node operators need to deal with bandwidth caps imposed by their ISPs.
+
+By default, DigiByte Core allows up to 125 connections to different peers, 10 of
+which are outbound. You can therefore, have at most 115 inbound connections.
+Of the 10 outbound peers, there can be 8 full-relay connections and 2
+block-relay-only ones.
+
+The default settings can result in relatively significant traffic consumption.
+
+Ways to reduce traffic:
+
+## 1. Use `-maxuploadtarget=<MiB per day>`
+
+A major component of the traffic is caused by serving historic blocks to other nodes
+during the initial blocks download phase (syncing up a new node).
+This option can be specified in MiB per day and is turned off by default.
+This is *not* a hard limit; only a threshold to minimize the outbound
+traffic. When the limit is about to be reached, the uploaded data is cut by no
+longer serving historic blocks (blocks older than one week).
+Keep in mind that new nodes require other nodes that are willing to serve
+historic blocks.
+
+Peers with the `download` permission will never be disconnected, although their traffic counts for
+calculating the target.
+
+## 2. Disable "listening" (`-listen=0`)
+
+Disabling listening will result in fewer nodes connected (remember the maximum of 10
+outbound peers). Fewer nodes will result in less traffic usage as you are relaying
+blocks and transactions to fewer nodes.
+
+## 3. Reduce maximum connections (`-maxconnections=<num>`)
+
+Reducing the maximum connected nodes to a minimum could be desirable if traffic
+limits are tiny. Keep in mind that digibyte's trustless model works best if you are
+connected to a handful of nodes.
+
+## 4. Turn off transaction relay (`-blocksonly`)
+
+Forwarding transactions to peers increases the P2P traffic. To only sync blocks
+with other peers, you can disable transaction relay.
+
+Be reminded of the effects of this setting.
+
+- Fee estimation will no longer work.
+- It sets the flag "-walletbroadcast" to be "0", only if it is currently unset.
+  Doing so disables the automatic broadcasting of transactions from wallet. Not
+  relaying other's transactions could hurt your privacy if used while a wallet
+  is loaded or if you use the node to broadcast transactions.
+- If a peer has the forcerelay permission, we will still receive and relay
+  their transactions.
+- It makes block propagation slower because compact block relay can only be
+  used when transaction relay is enabled.