Re: [Bitcoin-development] A bitcoin UDP P2P protocol extension

[Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@exmulti.com>]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr.org> wrote:
> On Saturday, March 23, 2013 10:42:26 AM Randy Willis wrote:
>> Introducing super-nodes with thousands of connected peers can greatly help
>> here.
>
> UDP is connectionless.
> I would hope any UDP bitcoin protocol doesn't try to emulate a connection. :/

It depends on the usage.  Simply broadcasting a TX or INV to a remote
peer does not require a connection, clearly...  but you probably want
to signal acceptance of those messages somehow.

But other uses, like subscribing to a broadcast, does require some
notion of an association.

In the rough draft, a parallel TCP connection with version/verack
sequence is required, and you may make use of it if a connection is
needed.

But that is just one approach.  A more robust, heavyweight UDP P2P
might be a hole-punching TCP alternative.  It's up to the community
and results of experimentation.

Bittorrent has evolved a full transfer protocol over UDP, to get
around firewalls and the like.
-- 
Jeff Garzik
exMULTI, Inc.
jgarzik@exmulti.com