How do I connect to other nodes within the intranet

[DerekYeung]

I have several machines on the same LAN all running beacon nodes, is there any way to connect these nodes together?

[prestonvanloon]

You can use the --peer flag multiple times to connect nodes. Your peer address is printed at start up

[DerekYeung]

--peer nodeAddress?

[DerekYeung]

btw can I use one consensus client to serve multiple execution clients? @prestonvanloon thanks

[prestonvanloon]

--peer nodeAddress?

Look for a message like this

[2022-09-23 12:10:10]  INFO p2p: Node started p2p server multiAddr=/ip4/192.168.1.25/tcp/13000/p2p/16Uiu2HAmLBZgZ3tGugCDVmYvFtVNFfZSAx3itNTNbPjxxcG8T5Q9

Then in your other client add the peer flag like this

--peer=/ip4/192.168.1.25/tcp/13000/p2p/16Uiu2HAmLBZgZ3tGugCDVmYvFtVNFfZSAx3itNTNbPjxxcG8T5Q9

You can specify the peer flag multiple times for each peer you want to add manually.

[prestonvanloon]

btw can I use one consensus client to serve multiple execution clients? @prestonvanloon thanks

Not at this time. It's a bit more complicated than it sounds

[DerekYeung]

oh I see, I guess the description of this documentation confuses me, it says "Connect with this peer", I didn't realize "this" represented the target address lol

[DerekYeung]

btw can I use one consensus client to serve multiple execution clients? @prestonvanloon thanks

Not at this time. It's a bit more complicated than it sounds

got it, thanks!

[prestonvanloon]

oh I see, I guess the description of this documentation confuses me, it says "Connect with this peer", I didn't realize "this" represented the target address lol

Is there somewhere we can improve that documentation?

cc @mick-prysm (docs expert)

[DerekYeung]

--peer value Connect with this peer. This flag may be used multiple times. (accepts multiple inputs)

I perfer change to "Connect with target peer"
"this" made me mistake it for itself, personal feeling

[DerekYeung]

opps I have a question my prysm client is running via docker, so the address in the logs is /ip4/172.18.0.3/tcp/13001/p2p/, can I change 172 to my local ip? will that work or I need set something up?

[prestonvanloon]

Try setting --p2p-host-ip to the appropriate value. This is the IP that the node will advertise, and I think will affect the log message you see to have the correct IP.

[DerekYeung]

I currently set p2p-host-ip to my real ip and map it in the route

[DerekYeung]

let me try the local ip first, if it doesnt work I think the public ip should work right

[prestonvanloon]

Yeah, you can just replace the public IP with the private one. That ought to work.

[DerekYeung]

I just tried, so the public ip works, but the private one not, I think it could bc docker

[prestonvanloon]

Could be docker. The node will communicate all of its possible connection strings. So you may have discovered the node via public IP, but you might be talking to it on the local intranet. I'm not sure about your specific setup.

[DerekYeung]

ye it displayed the public ip + docker ip but not my private ip
this is my docker setup

    command: [
      "--rpc-host=0.0.0.0",
      "--grpc-gateway-host=0.0.0.0",
      "--grpc-gateway-port=3500",
      "--monitoring-host=0.0.0.0",
      "--p2p-tcp-port=13004",
      "--p2p-udp-port=12004",
      "--accept-terms-of-use",
      "--execution-endpoint=/eth/master/geth.ipc",
      "--datadir=/eth/cs/master",
      "--peer=/ip4/MyPublicIp/tcp/13001/p2p/16Uiu2HAm5Qxi9vwHz4znkButRcxZ14p4LqjJdpucH9nfmLxhwKTC"
    ]

[DerekYeung]

and the p2p address in the p2p endpoint show me
/ip4/MyPublicIp/tcp/13001/p2p/16Uiu2HAm5Qxi9vwHz4znkButRcxZ14p4LqjJdpucH9nfmLxhwKTC,/ip4/172.18.0.3/tcp/13001/p2p/16Uiu2HAm5Qxi9vwHz4znkButRcxZ14p4LqjJdpucH9nfmLxhwKTC

[DerekYeung]

@prestonvanloon is there anyway to check if its working?

[prestonvanloon]

Check http://localhost:8080/p2p to see your peers. If it's not on localhost, you may need to set --monitoring-host=0.0.0.0