Developing a method for the detection and identification of rootstock blockchain network nodes

Abstract

The object of this study is the protocol for detecting nodes in the Rootstock blockchain network and crawling tools. Node discovery protocols are the foundation of any decentralized peer-to-peer network. In blockchain systems, full nodes store and maintain a complete copy of all transactions performed in the network. However, they do not store information about all other nodes, such as their IDs or IP addresses. Each node usually maintains an incomplete list of nodes to which it connects to exchange blockchain data. In decentralized networks, nodes join and leave the network and their IP addresses can change, making it impractical to maintain a complete, up-to-date list of all nodes. Therefore, the only way to get a list of all nodes in the network is to poll each node sequentially. The developed method involves sending specially formed messages to nodes to obtain their neighbors. The graph search algorithm is used to traverse all received neighboring nodes. This allows one to consistently detect all network nodes. Identifying the desired sequence of messages requires a preliminary analysis of the node software RSKj in the part of node discovery protocol. Effectiveness of the proposed method was verified using the developed software and an experiment in the main network. 6 verification nodes were deployed in different physical locations and at different times. All test nodes were detected in less than 10 minutes. The developed method found 222 nodes that have 209 unique IP addresses. Results of this study show how to perform analysis of node discovery protocol. They provide the means to obtain information about the available nodes of the Rootstock blockchain system, enabling the analysis of both the blockchain network in general and individual node