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BIP324 Proxy: easy integration of v2 transport protocol for light clients (PoC)

BIP324 Proxy: easy integration of v2 transport protocol for light clients (PoC)

Original Postby Liz.Lightning

Posted on: June 3, 2024 04:55 UTC

The email opens with an expression of gratitude towards @theStack for sharing their work on the bip324 proxy, highlighting its significant role in aiding the sender's development of a Golang version of the same.

The sender is optimistic about soon sharing the first version of their project and also making the bip324 implementation available as a library. This initiative indicates a collaborative effort within the programming community to enhance the functionalities and applications of bip324.

A primary concern addressed in the email revolves around the method of integrating this technology with existing clients. The current approach necessitates modifying these clients, which could potentially limit its adoption and utility. To circumvent this issue, the sender proposes an innovative solution that involves configuring a proxy to listen on different ports corresponding to specific peers. By assigning localhost:port1 to peer1, localhost:port2 to peer2, etc., the system can directly send bip324 messages to the respective peers without needing to alter any client software. This method simplifies the integration process by maintaining the original software architecture while enabling the use of bip324 communication protocols.

However, the proposed solution introduces a new challenge concerning peer discovery. Since the configuration of peers becomes static under this model, there might be limitations in dynamically discovering new peers. The sender suggests the possibility of utilizing DNS-seed for on-the-fly peer discovery to mitigate this issue, although it implies that peer discovery would either need to be managed by the proxy or remain static.

To illustrate the functionality of the proposed proxy server, the sender provides a technical example showcasing how the proxy server would operate. It demonstrates the proxy's ability to connect to specific peers (identified by IP addresses and ports) and listen on localhost with unique port numbers for each peer connection. This example serves to clarify the operational aspect of the solution and its potential to make the implementation of bip324 more accessible and user-friendly without requiring modifications to existing bitcoin software like btcd.