Connecting

Your Connection

A proper understanding of the Gnutella protocol will help a great deal towards maintaining your host connections and performing efficient searches.

The Gnutella Network

The Gnutella Protocol specifies a small set of messages which are passed from computer to computer. These messages can contain user searches, and the results of their searches. Hosts can appear and disappear from the network at any time. The disappearance of any one particular host does not affect the network, or your ability to search for files. In this sense it is fault tolerant.

BearShare maintains a certain number of host connections automatically, based on the settings you specify. With an increasing number of connections comes a larger amount of traffic. More connections also means more outgoing traffic to each of the hosts you are connected to, as well as additional CPU and memory requirements.

A problem arises when a host receives information faster than it can handle, or when a host attempts to send information to another host more quickly than the receiving host can accept it. Data can become accumulated by the sender, and as a result, hosts will see that responses to their messages take longer and longer. Eventually, hosts may stop receiving results altogether. This is called a bandwidth barrier

Bandwidth Barrier

BearShare detects bandwidth barriers and automatically drops hosts who cannot keep up with the amount of traffic required. These hosts have their bandwidth drawn in red in the host list. If the host falls too far behind, they are dropped. This scheme, over time, will tend to settle on hosts that are as fast as you, or faster.

For additional information about the bandwidth barrier and its implications, visit gnutellahosts.com.

Tips

Modem users should have no more than 2 connections. In addition, they should disconnect from all hosts during an upload or download. If possible, modem users should locate a Reflector to shield them from excess traffic.

Adjust the number of host connections by one at a time when possible. Experiment slowly and look at the impact of more or less connections on your searches. Use the statistics page to guage the effect of host connections on your memory and bandwidth.

Having a high speed Internet connection can help a great deal. But, even the fastest of connections can quickly become overloaded with a large number of hosts. A T1 line can handle 10 to 20 hosts on average. Although it might appear that you can handle a larger number of hosts, remember that if the hosts have slower network speed than you, they will reach the bandwidth barrier and get dropped.