Net Plugin API not giving accurate information about connected peers

Question

I have a running EOS blockchain with a connected peer (running) created by following the documentation tutorial https://developers.eos.io/welcome/latest/tutorials/bios-boot-sequence. So, my config file is not on the default path. The respective files are stored on the path /home/user/biosboot/genesis. Now to get the Peers information using the reference of NET API Plugin, I am calling the API https://developers.eos.io/manuals/eos/latest/nodeos/plugins/net_api_plugin/api-reference/index#operation/connections at my endpoint. It returns the list of peers connected but not with accurate values. For example:

Genesis node

cleos --url http://genesisip:8889 get info

returns head_block_num as 10385207

Connected Peer

cleos --url http://connectedip:8889 get info

returns head_block_num as 10385207

Now On POSTMAN, I call POST http://genesisip:8889/v1/net/connections it returns (*** are edited by me),

[
    {
        "peer": "",
        "connecting": false,
        "syncing": false,
        "last_handshake": {
            "network_version": 1207,
            "chain_id": "***",
            "node_id": "***",
            "key": "***",
            "time": "1612778978797327000",
            "token": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
            "sig": "***",
            "p2p_address": "connectedip:8888 - 540c0e9",
            "last_irreversible_block_num": 1445747,
            "last_irreversible_block_id": "***",
            "head_num": 1445748,
            "head_id": "***",
            "os": "linux",
            "agent": "\"EOS Test Agent\"",
            "generation": 3
        }
    }
]

All information of connected peer is completely different.chain_id is the same, head_num should be in the range of 10385207. why peer is empty? Why connecting and syncing are false? Do I need to pass any parameters related to the file's path? Please help.

Answer 1

if you hit that url with postman several times does the block numbers (e.g. LIB, head_number) are increasing? or you always get the same numbers?

if you always get the same numbers it means it is not syncing as the "connecting" and "syncing" values set as "false" are saying.

when you start the nodeos are there any errors printed in the console that can give clues? when you start nodeos do you start it with the net_api plugin and net plugin as well?

I saw the comment pointing to a telegram channel broken link, the EOSIO Developers telegram channel correct link is: https://t.me/joinchat/0uhWYfXVpPlkNTA1

Answer 2

The information you get from peers depends on if it is an "incoming" connection or an "outgoing" connection. If peer A is configured to connect to peer B and peer B is configured to connect to peer A, only one of these connections will be active, the other will be marked duplicate and dropped. All p2p connections are bi-directional, so it doesn't matter that one is dropped, but you see the difference in what connections reports.

The block number reported is from the time the connection is established.