How to run a full node: Am I already doing so?

I've succesfully installed bitcoind and bitcoin-cli. I got some questions about it:

I run bitcoind in the background by typing: bitcoind -daemon and the blockchain begins to download:

By typing getinfo I can see how many blocks are known to my client on the line “blocks”… that´s ok for me.

But what happens at the end? I don´t see that bitcoind reports me anything back on the shell.

I see by typing getinfo that the blockchain is already on my computer. Then I turn off or hibernate computer for few hours.

I run bitcoind -daemon everytime I turn on my computer and it downloads the latest blocks that, of course, are missing because my computer was turned off. Is that all?

Am I already running a full node?

Do I have to wait for the full download of blockchain for sending or receiving BTC with blitcoin-cli?

Does bitcoin-cli work without this large file?

gwen2006

Posted 2015-12-30T20:34:46.440

Reputation: 31

Answers

Yes, congratulations you are running a full node.

Note that you're mostly running a full node so that you can fully validate everything so you can now send and receive money without trusting anyone. However you are trusting your PC itself, malware might steal your money or cause you to lose money (both would happen with non-full nodes too of course).

You might want to check how many connections you have (after bitcoind has been running for at least an hour or so) use getpeerinfo. If you only see 8 outgoing connections then other nodes can probably not reach you. If you would like to enable them to do so you might need to configure your router to do portforwarding.

For receiving bitcoins you don't even need to be online at all. For sending them you don't need to have finished downloading as long as it has downloaded far enough to know that you received any.

Jannes

Posted 2015-12-30T20:34:46.440

Reputation: 5 823

Good job running a full node. You are already helping the bitcoin network. Yes, you have to wait for the full download of blockchain for sending or receiving BTC with bitcoin-cli.

To better know what bitcoind is doing, you can install frontend for bitcoind. Have fun watching bitcoin transactions!

dark knight

Posted 2015-12-30T20:34:46.440

Reputation: 1 532