When looking on the Ethereum Network Status site, only a limited number of nodes are listed. How can I discover how many nodes there are currently running in total?
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Check out Ethernodes.org link– J2R5M3Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 7:31
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3 Answers
Disclaimer: I run ethernodes.org
There is a node explorer available at ethernodes.org which tries to estimate the number of nodes on the Ethereum network.
The estimation is based on an active crawling process that recursively connects to a node and asks for its known peers. As this approach only reaches nodes that are accessible from the outside a second, passive approach is used to reach nodes behind a NAT.
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1Can you elaborate on the passive approach? Do have have several nodes listing in for inbound connections to it? Why would a node not be accessible from the outside? Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 6:33
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1Nodes might not be accessible from the outside because they are behind a NAT. The passive approach works by running a full node with unlimited peers and logging each peer that tries to connect.– P.P.Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 21:12
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@P.P. can you clarify the difference between "peers" and "known peers"– Akhil FCommented Feb 25, 2016 at 18:09
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Nice tool but using the Search function with any IP address yields a Cloudflare error " Error 502 Ray ID: 2a50030943b1445d • 2016-05-18 14:31:18 UTC Bad gateway" Commented May 18, 2016 at 14:31
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@P.P. Hey. Are you still running Ethernodes.org? I want to know your thoughts on discovery protocols / rlpx / devp2p protocols if so.– SentinelCommented Nov 8, 2018 at 19:37
There are two tools which track running ether nodes available:
- The etherchain node scanner.
- The ethernodes scanner.
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1July 2017 update. The link to the etherchain node scanner no longer works. And etherchain's Node Explorer in the Tools menu now redirects to ethernodes.– TesaCommented Jul 31, 2017 at 14:26
Update. As of this morning (July 31, 2017), there were 21,349 nodes, according to Ethernodes. The Etherchain Node scanner which 5chdn listed as the other nodes tracker in his Feb. 2016 answer (https://etherchain.org/nodes) no longer seems to work. Etherchain's "Node Explorer" (in the Tools menu) now redirects to Ethernodes.org.
If you would like to see images worth a 1000 words (or numbers!), you might like to look at a recent visual representation of the spread of Ethereum nodes around the world.
On Tuesday, July 18, 2017, Peter Szilagyi, who is part of ethereum's development community, tweeted Google Earth images showing the global spread of ethereum nodes in the network.
How did he do that?
By converting the computer Internet Protocol addresses from ethernodes.org into geographic locations and plotting them on Google Earth. He added that the ethernodes project may not include every single node, but the data is "the best we currently have."
In his tweet, Péter Szilágyi explained the colors on this map: (green = @golang geth, orange = @rustlang parity, white = everything else).
For more details, see this article: Ethereum is taking over the digital currency world which includes maps and a video.
Check out also this May 31, 2017 article: Ethereum now has three times more nodes than Bitcoin (i.e 25,000 for Ethereum vs. 7000 for Bitcoin).