Terminology question: Incoming vs. Outgoing Ultrapeers?
 

Hello all.

I've got a fast PC with a 6Mbps/768kbps cable modem and a UPnP-aware NETGEAR WGT624 router. This makes my LimeWire Pro session a prime candidate for being an Ultrapeer (UP). Enabling and displaying the Connections tab, I average about 30 Peers (other UPs) and 10 Leaf nodes.

In the grand Gnutella network scheme, what is the significance of having Outgoing UPs vs. Incoming UPs? All Leaf nodes are Incoming connections. Are the Outgoing Peers ones I feed from and the Incoming Peers ones I feed into? Does having 13 Outgoing UPs vs. 17 Incoming UPs imply anything about my connectivity or usefulness to the Gnutella network?

Everything's working fine; in fact, extremely well. Being a networking geek by trade and pastime, I'm simply curious.

Thanks!

Outgoing peers are ones that you initiated the contact with.

Incoming peers initiated the connection.

re the significance of the number of peers/leafs:

If your bandwidth is largely taken up with file transfers, you may see fewer leafs: Actuallly, the code may decide (somehow) that your connection will work best as a leaf in that case.

Thanks Stief!

The balance of peers to leaf connections does vary considerably, depending on whether I'm trying to download and/or how many uploads are in progress. I've got many less leafs (3) vs. 28 peers with a 68KB U/L and 68KB D/L going on.

Regarding the Outgoing vs. Incoming ratio, is that simply defined by how long I've been on the Gnutella network? This morning I had 90% Incoming connections (the PC's been an UP for >24 hours), but I added 7 Outgoing peer connections about 15 minutes ago.

Again, just morbid curiousity. Everything's working great.

Thanks again!

yes--eventually (after several days) you should see all (-1, for some reason) incoming.

I'm not sure what changed with the 4.9 releases or because of the increases in the netsize, but leaves don't seem to need others running as an UP as much. Just now http://www.limewire.com/english/content/netsize.shtml shows ~1/4 of a million ultrapeers servicing 2 million users. That's only about 8 leafs per peer.

Perhaps because there are so many more 4.9 versions out there with the improved connection logic that fewer ultrapeers are needed.

It's good to see that UP's are no longer in such high demand.