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Latency

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Overview

To assess the latency and health of your P2P network, you can leverage the built-in ping protocol. This mechanism allows you to measure the round-trip operation timeframe.

The ping protocol is actively running in your network.

  1. Send a ping message to a given peer.

  2. Wait for a response.

  3. Measure the time elapsed during the operation.

The stack logs the latency automatically, assuming the appropriate debug logs are enabled.

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Example Logs

When debug logging is enabled, you'll see entries like the following in your logs:

[2025-04-15 08:19:49]:[v1.10.0]:[debug]:: 2025-04-15T08:19:49.919Z libp2p:ping incoming ping from 12D3KooWAQ8UrZkbDCyPSyRWrzPbn9vP5pMoV1F8hXi6AMVFKYqE complete in 54ms
[2025-04-15 08:19:49]:[v1.10.0]:[debug]:: 2025-04-15T08:19:49.098Z libp2p:ping incoming ping from 12D3KooWSJw4HjLba4Fp63DT3jCiGYf9fBQQ1mvP6LLJogZGxzmC complete in 8ms
[2025-04-15 08:19:48]:[v1.10.0]:[debug]:: 2025-04-15T08:19:48.577Z libp2p:ping incoming ping from 12D3KooWH45THrNhhDSNMzWcaxQ39ydQ5WqXfku7j396c4JDAt8C complete in 30ms

Latency between peers can be influenced by:

  • Geographical distribution

  • Network routing

  • NAT traversal complexity

  • ISP conditions

  • Transport layers (WebSockets, QUIC, TCP, etc.)

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Enabling Debug Logs

Enable the libp2p:ping debug namespace. This can be done by setting the following environment variable before starting your node:

For detailed diagnostics (e.g. libp2p:gossipsub, libp2p:connection-manager)

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