Bitcoin Core 0.20 whitelist guide covering bloomfilter, noban, forcerelay, relay and mempool permissions, implicit defaults, CIDR scope and safe peer trust.
This guide explains Bitcoin Core whitelist permissions in plain English. It focuses on what the subject is, why it matters and what a beginner should remember.
Bitcoin Core whitelist permissions: whitelist applies permissions to peers from an IP address or CIDR network. Whitebind listens on an address and port and grants permissions to peers connecting there.
A node operator is checking Bitcoin Core whitelist permissions. Use comma-separated permissions before an at sign and the address. It does not make messages valid and can increase resource exposure if granted to an attacker or broad subnet.
whitelist applies permissions to peers from an IP address or CIDR network. Whitebind listens on an address and port and grants permissions to peers connecting there. Neither authenticates an organisation by name.
Use comma-separated permissions before an at sign and the address. Omitting the prefix invokes version-specific implicit defaults, so explicit minimal sets are safer and easier to audit.
noban exempts a peer from automatic banning for misbehaviour in this version. It does not make messages valid and can increase resource exposure if granted to an attacker or broad subnet.
relay permits transaction relay even in blocksonly mode; forcerelay can relay transactions already known to the mempool and implies relay. Grant only where that behaviour is operationally necessary.
mempool permits BIP 35 mempool requests and bloomfilter permits BIP 37 filtering. Both can expose data or consume resources and should not be default trust badges.
Use the narrowest valid host or subnet and a dedicated whitebind interface where appropriate. NAT, proxies and shared networks can make source address a weak identity signal.
Developers test the proposal with made-up data on an isolated test network. They check normal cases and deliberately invalid cases. Different implementations should reach the same result before anyone relies on the proposal.
Bitcoin Core whitelist permissions: whitelist applies permissions to peers from an IP address or CIDR network.
whitelist applies permissions to peers from an IP address or CIDR network.
Use comma-separated permissions before an at sign and the address. Omitting the prefix invokes version-specific implicit defaults, so explicit minimal sets are safer and easier to audit.
noban exempts a peer from automatic banning for misbehaviour in this version.
Peer whitelisting deliberately relaxes Bitcoin Core safeguards. Safe operation grants explicit individual permissions to the smallest reliable address scope and verifies the effective connection after every restart.
Check the current specification status and the documentation for the exact implementation you operate before moving production funds or changing a mining node.
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