[Question] but... where the hell the data is stored?

[Kikobeats]

I'm trying to understand how Bittorrent protocol and DHT works.

I understand that DHT is distributed between peers, but, in this case, where is the data stored? who are the peers?

bittorrent-dht dependency have a default tracker declared?

It's fuck*ng my brain!

[max-mapper]

Heres the technical explanation http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0044.html

[paulkernfeld]

@Kikobeats bittorrent-dht does have default bootstrap nodes.

[Kikobeats]

Now more clear! Thank you guys :-)

[Kikobeats]

@paulkernfeld one extra question: The bootraps nodes are trackers?

I'm thinking in a scenario that I connect to the DHT for first time to download something and I don't have a list of associated nodes that can serve me the file. What happens? Bootstraps node give me a start list?

It's in this initial step where I feel lost.

[paulkernfeld]

@Kikobeats I wouldn't say that the bootstrap nodes are actually "trackers;" they just give you information to connect to the rest of the DHT. Since the BitTorrent hash table is decentralized, there aren't really trackers in this case. For more about how you connect to other nodes once you know the first node, you might want to look up Kademlia, the DHT that BitTorrent uses.

[Kikobeats]

@paulkernfeld I think that your comment is aligned with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_DHT#Torrents

and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_node

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1181301/how-does-a-dht-in-a-bittorent-client-get-bootstrapped https://superuser.com/questions/592238/in-simple-terms-how-does-a-bittorrent-client-initially-discover-peers-using-dht

thanks again!

[paulkernfeld]

Exactly!