Merge pull request #364 from lbryio/dht_bootstrap

documents/resources/dht-bootstrap.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+title: Hosting a DHT bootstrap node
+description: How to setup a bootstrap DHT node
+---
+
+This guide will help you setup and maintain a LBRY DHT [bootstrap node](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_node). Those nodes are important so people can join the network on first startup.
+
+After finishing and checking that it works, if you want to add your node to the SDK bootstrap list just open a PR adding yourself to the [conf file](https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-sdk/blob/master/lbry/conf.py#L694) or an issue on the [SDK repo](https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-sdk/).
+
+## Requirements
+- Being reachable over UDP on the internet at some port
+- 1GB of memory
+- Docker or Python 3.7 (check [pyenv](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv) if your Linux distribution doesn't offer that version)
+
+## Running directly from Docker
+This is the easiest way to run and maintain your node. Just run:
+```bash
+docker run -d -p 4444:4444 lbry/dht-bootstrap:latest
+```
+
+## Installing LBRY SDK from source
+The most up to date guide for doing it will always be in the [INSTALL.md file](https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-sdk/blob/master/INSTALL.md). Please refer to it if you run into trouble. Otherwise, this should be enough most of the time (assuming requirements are all there):
+```bash
+git clone https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-sdk.git
+make install
+```
+
+### Running a node from source
+After installing, just:
+```bash
+python scripts/dht_node.py
+```
+
+### Checking if it is working
+From another machine with the SDK installed, run:
+```bash
+python scripts/dht_node.py --bootstrap_node your-server-domain-here.com:4444
+```
+After 10-20 seconds, you should see more than 0 peers on the log messages. If that is not the case, check firewall on the bootstrap node and see if it is reachable.