Fulcrum announcing on tor despite announce=false

[MrPeteypoo]

Hi, I've been using Fulcrum for a while and recently decided to disable the peering/announce functionality due to the limited bandwidth of my internet. Despite setting peering and announcing to false, and setting a blank tor_hostname my Fulcrum instance still seems to be accepting peers over Tor.

Here is my configuration file:

datadir = /data/fulcrum  # Windows: datadir = D:\FulcrumData\mainnet
bitcoind = [REDACTED]
rpccookie = [REDACTED]
tcp = 0.0.0.0:50001
tcp = ::0:50001
ssl = 0.0.0.0:50002
ssl = ::0:50002
cert = [REDACTED]
key = [REDACTED]
hostname = [REDACTED]
peering = false
announce = false
admin = [REDACTED]
stats = [REDACTED]
tor_hostname=
tor_tcp_port = 50001
tor_ssl_port = 50002

Here is my log:

Started Fulcrum daemon.
[2023-03-06 19:35:15.109] DB memory: 512.00 MiB
[2023-03-06 19:35:15.109] Coin: BTC
[2023-03-06 19:35:15.109] Chain: main
[2023-03-06 19:35:15.109] Verifying headers ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:16.368] Initializing header merkle cache ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:16.932] Checking tx counts ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:19.891] 811535822 total transactions
[2023-03-06 19:35:19.894] UTXO set: 84924816 utxos, 7133.685 MB
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.023] BitcoinDMgr: starting 3 bitcoin RPC clients ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.023] BitcoinDMgr: started ok
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.024] Stats HTTP: starting 1 server ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.024] Starting listener service for HttpSrv [REDACTED]...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.024] Service started, listening for connections on [REDACTED]
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.120] <Controller> Block height 779618, up-to-date
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.120] SrvMgr: starting 5 services ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.120] Starting listener service for TcpSrv :::50001 ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.120] Service started, listening for connections on :::50001
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Starting listener service for TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001 ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Service started, listening for connections on 0.0.0.0:50001
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Starting listener service for SslSrv :::50002 ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Service started, listening for connections on :::50002
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Starting listener service for SslSrv 0.0.0.0:50002 ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Service started, listening for connections on 0.0.0.0:50002
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Starting listener service for AdminSrv [REDACTED] ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] Service started, listening for connections on [REDACTED]
[2023-03-06 19:35:20.121] <Controller> Starting ZMQ Notifier (hashblock) ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:26.740] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.1245 127.0.0.1:44288, 1 client total
[2023-03-06 19:35:37.135] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3050 127.0.0.1:40272, 2 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:40.718] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3210 127.0.0.1:50826, 3 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:47.268] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3253 127.0.0.1:50828, 2 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:50.213] <SslSrv 0.0.0.0:50002> New SSL Client.3281 127.0.0.1:33128, 3 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:52.952] <SslSrv 0.0.0.0:50002> New SSL Client.3316 127.0.0.1:52226, 4 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:54.997] <Controller> Block height 779619, downloading new blocks ...
[2023-03-06 19:35:55.381] <Controller> Processed 1 new block with 2156 txs (7071 inputs, 4954 outputs, 10146 addresses), verified ok.
[2023-03-06 19:35:55.381] <Controller> Block height 779619, up-to-date
[2023-03-06 19:35:57.303] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3354 127.0.0.1:34822, 5 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:35:59.327] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3361 127.0.0.1:34830, 5 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:36:01.516] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3390 127.0.0.1:60780, 4 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:36:03.616] <TcpSrv 0.0.0.0:50001> New TCP Client.3410 127.0.0.1:60792, 4 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:36:08.146] <SslSrv 0.0.0.0:50002> New SSL Client.3448 127.0.0.1:52228, 5 clients total
[2023-03-06 19:36:14.988] <Controller> 3105 mempool txs involving 87900 addresses

To be clear, during this test I had only one instance of Sparrow connecting to my Fulcrum via Tor.

[cculianu]

Are you sure those are peers? Are you sure they are coming in over tor? And not your own wallet or something?

[MrPeteypoo]

Let me be absolutely sure and check again. It could be that I'm being stupid and have more local connections running. I'll confirm this hopefully on Thursday

[MrPeteypoo]

Are you sure those are peers? Are you sure they are coming in over tor? And not your own wallet or something?

Hi again, I realized I was being an idiot and still have my Mempool instance running and my Samourai Dojo instance running. Unfortunately after stopping them and closing all my wallets I'm still seeing 3-5 clients connecting via 127.0.0.1. Nobody has my address. Is it possible that because I previously announced my Fulcrum server that some clients are still aware of my onion address? Perhaps if I reset my onion address I'll no longer have any clients connecting to me?

[cculianu]

I don't know quite honestly. Yes that is possible.

[MrPeteypoo]

When I next have time I'll generate a new for hostname and see if it still happens. I'll get back to you later this week.

[MrPeteypoo]

Alright I got chance to test this. It wasn't the fault of Fulcrum. It seems what was happening is that some peers were remembering my tor hostname after I previously announced it. Generating a new hostname and running Fulcrum for 15 minutes causes no peers to connect. Sorry for the confusion.

Btw I really like Fulcrum, I'm not interested in BCH or LTC but it's fantastic for BTC! I'll be sure to donate a little, keep up the good work :+1:

[cculianu]

Hey thanks for the kind words and I'm glad it wasn't Fulcrum's fault. Yes, peers can remember you so yes I guess that makes sense that resetting the hostname did it. Cheers!