How do I enable incoming connections? (ELI5)

Question

Edit: I said 'outgoing connections' in the original question title, but apparently the correct term is 'incoming connections'. I meant: "How can I share my node's blockchain so that others can update theirs?" Currently I have 8+0 connections. I found some tips about router settings and I will post an answer when I get it to work.

I want to contribute to the network and I read that I should open port 18081 in order to enable outgoing connections. How do I do this? I don't know how to change the router settings. The router is a box that my ISP installed. I tried to add a rule in Windows Firewall, but that didn't work.

I have no network problems when it comes to minting PoS coins or even mining low-difficulty coins.

Answer 1

You should not have anything to do to allow outgoing connections, unless you're in a restrictive environment - in which case the steps to allow this are independent of Monero.

If you meant incoming connections, then you need to setup your router to allow port 18080, and forward it to the machine running monerod.

If you run "status" in monerod, you will see a "X+Y" counter pair at the end of the line: X represents the number of outgoing connections, and Y represents the number of incoming connections.

Port 18081 is for RPC connections, and you generally want to keep it local.

If you're getting any errors, posting them will help determine what issue you're facing.

Answer 2

You may be confused about outgoing and incoming connections. Outgoing connections refer to your node reaching out to the network to initiate connections with other nodes. Incoming connections refer to other nodes initiating a connection with your node.

If you want to not only "leach" off the network, but also provide your blockchain copy to other nodes, then you must forward port 18080 on your router. It may be in your router's advanced settings, but it's actually not very complicated to accomplish. However, the method of doing it may be specific to your router, so you should perform an internet search for using your router.

Forwarding port 18080 is for P2P connections, which is what you're interested in. If you forward port 18081, that is for RPC connections. A deeper discussion on this matter is at this SE question.