Bootstrap Nodes and Discover Peers

This guide provides detailed steps to bootstrap your your node using Static Peers and discover peers in the Waku Network using DNS Discovery.

info

If you do not set up a bootstrap node or discovery mechanism, your node will not connect to any remote peer.

tip

Until node incentivisation is in place, you should operate extra nodes alongside the ones provided by the Waku Network. When running a node, we recommend using the DNS Discovery and Static Peers configuration to connect to both the Waku Network and your node.

Default bootstrap method

The @waku/sdk package provides a built-in bootstrapping method that uses DNS Discovery to locate peers from the waku v2.prod ENR tree.

import { createLightNode } from "@waku/sdk";

// Bootstrap node using the default bootstrap method
const node = await createLightNode({ defaultBootstrap: true });

Configure static peers

To set static peers, a list of multiaddr to bootstrap the node should be passed to the bootstrapPeers parameter of the createLightNode() function:

import { createLightNode } from "@waku/sdk";

// Bootstrap node using static peers
const node = await createLightNode({
    bootstrapPeers: ["[PEER MULTIADDR]"],
});

For example, consider a node that connects to two static peers on the same local host (IP: 0.0.0.0) using TCP ports 60002 and 60003 with WebSocket enabled:

// Define the list of static peers to bootstrap
const peers = [
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60002/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAkzjwwgEAXfeGNMKFPSpc6vGBRqCdTLG5q3Gmk2v4pQw7H",
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60003/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAmFBA7LGtwY5WVVikdmXVo3cKLqkmvVtuDu63fe8safeQJ",
];

// Bootstrap node using the static peers
const node = await createLightNode({
    bootstrapPeers: peers,
});

Alternatively, you can dial a particular node like this:

// Define the list of static peers to bootstrap
const peers = [
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60002/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAkzjwwgEAXfeGNMKFPSpc6vGBRqCdTLG5q3Gmk2v4pQw7H",
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60003/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAmFBA7LGtwY5WVVikdmXVo3cKLqkmvVtuDu63fe8safeQJ",
];


const node = await createLightNode();

// In case nodes are using IP address and / or `ws` protocol - additional configuration is needed:
/*
const node = await createLightNode({
    libp2p: {
        filterMultiaddrs: false,
    },
});
*/

const promises = peers.map(multiaddr => node.dial(multiaddr));

await Promise.all(promises);

tip

For local development using a nwaku node, use a ws address instead of wss. Remember that this setup is functional only when your web server is running locally. You can check how to get multi address of your locally run node in Find node address.

Configure DNS discovery

To bootstrap a node using DNS Discovery, first install the @waku/dns-discovery package:

npm install @waku/dns-discovery

yarn add @waku/dns-discovery

Then, use the wakuDnsDiscovery() function to provide a list of URLs for DNS node list in the format enrtree://<key>@<fqdn>:

import { createLightNode } from "@waku/sdk";
import { wakuDnsDiscovery } from "@waku/dns-discovery";

// Define DNS node list
const enrTree = "enrtree://[PUBLIC KEY]@[DOMAIN NAME]";

// Define node requirements
const NODE_REQUIREMENTS = {
    store: 3,
    lightPush: 3,
    filter: 3,
};

// Bootstrap node using DNS Discovery
const node = await createLightNode({
    libp2p: {
        peerDiscovery: [
            wakuDnsDiscovery(
                [enrTree],
                NODE_REQUIREMENTS,
            ),
        ],
    },
});

For example, consider a node that uses the waku v2.prod and waku v2.test ENR trees for DNS Discovery:

import { enrTree } from "@waku/dns-discovery";

// Bootstrap node using DNS Discovery
const node = await createLightNode({
    libp2p: {
        peerDiscovery: [
            wakuDnsDiscovery(
                [enrTree["PROD"], enrTree["TEST"]],
                NODE_REQUIREMENTS,
            ),
        ],
    },
});

Configure DNS discovery and static peers

You can also bootstrap your node using DNS Discovery and Static Peers simultaneously:

import { createLightNode } from "@waku/sdk";
import { bootstrap } from "@libp2p/bootstrap";
import { enrTree, wakuDnsDiscovery } from "@waku/dns-discovery";

// Define the list of static peers to bootstrap
const peers = [
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60002/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAkzjwwgEAXfeGNMKFPSpc6vGBRqCdTLG5q3Gmk2v4pQw7H",
    "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/60003/ws/p2p/16Uiu2HAmFBA7LGtwY5WVVikdmXVo3cKLqkmvVtuDu63fe8safeQJ",
];

// Define node requirements
const NODE_REQUIREMENTS = {
    store: 3,
    lightPush: 3,
    filter: 3,
};

// Bootstrap node using DNS Discovery and static peers
const node = await createLightNode({
    libp2p: {
        bootstrapPeers: peers,
        peerDiscovery: [
            wakuDnsDiscovery(
                [enrTree["PROD"]],
                NODE_REQUIREMENTS,
            ),
        ],
    },
});

Retrieving connected peers

You can retrieve the array of peers connected to a node using the libp2p.getPeers() function within the @waku/sdk package:

import { createLightNode } from "@waku/sdk";

const node = await createLightNode({ defaultBootstrap: true });
await node.waitForPeers();

// Retrieve array of peers connected to the node
console.log(node.libp2p.getPeers());