Connecting Peers

Basic peer discovery (DHT)

By default, SeedNet finds peers via the BitTorrent Mainline DHT — the same distributed hash table used by BitTorrent clients worldwide. No setup required; it works as long as your device has internet access.

# Device A
seednet up "my secret network"

# Device B (same phrase, different machine, anywhere on the internet)
seednet up "my secret network"

Peers typically appear within 10–60 seconds.

Speeding up discovery with trackers

BitTorrent trackers provide instant peer lists without waiting for DHT propagation. SeedNet includes a built-in list of public trackers, but you can add more:

seednet up "my secret network" \
  --tracker-url udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337 \
  --tracker-url udp://open.demonii.com:1337

Direct peer address (zero-latency discovery)

If you already know a peer's IP and port, skip DHT entirely:

seednet up "my secret network" --tracker 203.0.113.5:51820

This connects directly on start — useful for LAN setups or when one machine has a static IP.

Connection types

The seednet list output shows the connection type for each peer:

Type	Meaning
direct	Direct UDP/TCP connection — lowest latency
relay via <peer>	Traffic is relayed through another peer — used when direct connection fails (NAT, firewall)

SeedNet always tries a direct connection first. If it fails within 2 seconds, it falls back to relay and continues upgrading to direct in the background.

Checking connectivity

Once peers appear in seednet list, use their overlay IP to communicate:

# Get peer IPs
seednet list

# Ping a peer
ping 10.0.1.2

# SSH to a peer
ssh [email protected]

# Any port, any protocol — it's a virtual LAN
curl http://10.0.1.3:8080

Firewall tips

• SeedNet defaults to a UDP port derived from your seed phrase — the same port on all devices in your network.
• If peers are stuck on relay, try opening the UDP port in your firewall or router.
• TCP and WebSocket transports are also supported as fallbacks (--transport udp,tcp,ws).