What does it mean to dial a peer?

[dwarkesh]

Relevant: How to find the trace of all IP addresses accessed on DHT to find record? - #11 by fusetim

When I run curl -X POST "https://node1.delegate.ipfs.io/api/v0/dht/findprovs?arg=QmbWqxBEKC3P8tqsKc98xmWNzrzDtRLMiMPL8wBuTGsMnR&verbose=true", I usually get responses with Types 0, 1, 4, 7. This is what these types correspond to:

ipfs/js-ipfs/blob/6870873f0696bb5d8d91fce4a4ef1f7420443993/packages/ipfs-http-client/src/dht/response-types.js

Every type but 7, or DialingPeer makes sense to me. What does it mean to dial a peer? And why does it only seem happen once you’ve gotten a PeerResponse from the same peer? Additionally, how come you can get a PeerResponse from peers whom you haven’t sent a SendingPeer query to? Is there a good tutorial out there somewhere on response types? Thanks a lot!

[dwarkesh]

Another relevant link: , HTTP API | IPFS Docs

[stebalien]

We “dial” a peer to connect to them. The phrase comes from golang (where IPFS was first implemented) and originally comes from plan9 (the operating system).

I’m not sure why you’re seeing “dials” after getting a response. Usually, you send a query, optionally dialing the peer if you don’t already have a connection to them, then you get a response from them.

[dwarkesh]

Got you, thanks a lot!