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Does querying the DNS Seeds via TOR return .onion addresses? If not, then if my node is a TOR only node, does it always get the .onion addresses to connect to, from the hard-coded list?

Additionally, are the DNS queries encrypted or in plain-text for IP nodes?

Michael Folkson
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Vinay Shetty
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1 Answers1

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Does querying the DNS Seeds via TOR return .onion addresses?

Sometimes. Before the Bitcoin Core PR (#25678) you would expect to fall back to relying on the .onion addresses in the hardcoded seeds though you may get onion addresses if you are lucky to connect to a peer that happens to offer these.

As lightlike says in the comment:

For Tor Bitcoin Core currently first does an AddrFetch connection (a short-lived connection with the goal of getting addresses) via Tor exit nodes to an address each DNS seed resolves to, violating the -onlynet option. This may result in some onion addresses, but only if we are lucky to connect to a peer that happens to offer these. #25678 suggests to change that behavior to skip the DNS seed step and immediately resort to hardcoded peers

With regards to the second question:

Additionally, are the DNS queries encrypted or in plain-text for IP nodes?

Messages between nodes are currently not encrypted but there is ongoing work to change this in future.

Michael Folkson
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    See the OP of #25678, for Tor Bitcoin Core currently first does an AddrFetch connection (a short-lived connection with the goal of getting addresses) via Tor exit nodes to an address each DNS seed resolves to, violating the -onlynet option. This may result in some onion addresses, but only if we are lucky to connect to a peer that happens to offer these. #25678 suggests to change that behavior to skip the DNS seed step and immediately resort to hardcoded peers. – Lightlike Aug 10 '22 at 22:20
  • @Lightlike: Thanks for the correction and the additional detail. Feel free to post your own alternative answer in future in cases like this. Your answer is much better than mine :) – Michael Folkson Aug 14 '22 at 12:25
  • "Messages between nodes are currently not encrypted but there is ongoing work to change this in future." I'm not very familiar with exactly how DNS is used in Core but afaik these queries are not between nodes, but rather between a node and a DNS server so I don't think BIP324 applies? – stickies-v Oct 05 '22 at 15:48