Overview

If your Bitping Node shows 0 peers and 0 jobs performed despite being connected to the P2P network, you may have a DNS resolution issue. This is most commonly caused by DNS-level ad blockers such as Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or similar tools blocking Bitping’s bootstrap server addresses.

Symptoms

You may be experiencing this issue if your node status output looks similar to this:

[NETWORK]
- P2P Network Status: [✓] Connected
- P2P Network Peers: 0

[PERFORMANCE]
- Jobs Performed: 0

Your node appears connected, but has no peers and never receives any jobs. You may also see errors in the node logs like:

WARN common::p2p::handlers::hub::events: Dial errored, connection_id: ConnectionId(...),
peer_id: None, error: Transport([(/dnsaddr/boot2.bitping.com, Other(Custom { kind: Other,
error: Other(Right(Dial([ResolveError(...)]))) }))])

The key detail is the ResolveError for boot2.bitping.com — this means your DNS resolver is failing to resolve the address that your node needs to discover peers on the network.

Why This Happens

Bitping uses a bootstrap server at boot2.bitping.com with DNS-based peer discovery (via _dnsaddr TXT records). Some community-maintained DNS blocklists incorrectly flag subdomains like _dnsaddr.boot2.bitping.com as tracking or advertising domains, causing DNS-level ad blockers to block them.

When these DNS queries are blocked, your node cannot discover any peers, which means it will never receive jobs — even though the P2P connection itself appears to be working.

Diagnosing the Problem

Step 1: Check if DNS resolution is failing

From the machine running your Bitping Node (or another device on the same network), run:

nslookup boot2.bitping.com

If the result returns 0.0.0.0 or :: (or fails entirely), your DNS is blocking the domain:

Name:   boot2.bitping.com
Address: 0.0.0.0
Name:   boot2.bitping.com
Address: ::

A healthy response should return an actual IP address.

Step 2: Confirm the block is coming from your DNS filter

If you’re running Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or a similar DNS filter, check its query log for blocked requests from your node’s IP address. In Pi-hole, for example:

1. Open the Pi-hole admin panel (typically at http://pi.hole/admin)
2. Go to Query Log or Long-term Data > Query Log
3. Look for your node’s IP address in the Top Clients list and click on it
4. You may need to click the + sign under Advanced Filtering to expand the filter options
5. Look for queries to boot2.bitping.com or _dnsaddr.boot2.bitping.com — blocked queries will appear in red, while allowed queries appear in green

If you see red (blocked) entries for boot2.bitping.com or any *.boot2.bitping.com subdomain, this confirms the issue.

Fixing the Problem

Pi-hole

1. Open the Pi-hole admin panel
2. Go to Domains (or Whitelist in older versions)
3. Add one of the following as a Regex/Wildcard allowlist entry:
   • *.boot2.bitping.com — allows only the bootstrap server subdomains
   • *.bitping.com — allows all Bitping domains (broader, but simpler)
4. Click Add to Allowlist
5. The change takes effect immediately — no restart needed

AdGuard Home

1. Open the AdGuard Home admin panel
2. Go to Filters > DNS allowlists (or Custom filtering rules)
3. Add the following rule:

   @@||boot2.bitping.com^

4. Click Apply

Other DNS Filters

If you are using a different DNS filtering solution, add boot2.bitping.com and its subdomains (especially _dnsaddr.boot2.bitping.com) to your allowlist. Consult your DNS filter’s documentation for how to add wildcard or regex allowlist entries.

Using an Alternative DNS Resolver

If you don’t control the DNS filter on your network, you can configure your node’s machine to use a public DNS resolver that doesn’t block Bitping domains, such as:

Provider	Primary DNS	Secondary DNS
Cloudflare	1.1.1.1	1.0.0.1
Google	8.8.8.8	8.8.4.4
Quad9	9.9.9.9	149.112.112.112

Verifying the Fix

After updating your allowlist, verify that DNS resolution is working:

nslookup boot2.bitping.com

You should now see a real IP address in the response instead of 0.0.0.0. Once DNS is resolving correctly, restart your Bitping Node. Within a few minutes, you should see the peer count increase and jobs start coming in:

[NETWORK]
- P2P Network Status: [✓] Connected
- P2P Network Peers: 3

[PERFORMANCE]
- Jobs Performed: 12

Need More Help?

If you’ve allowlisted the domains and are still experiencing connectivity issues, please reach out to our support team at [email protected] or join our Telegram group with:

• Your Bitping Node version
• Your P2P ID
• The output of nslookup boot2.bitping.com
• Any relevant log messages

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Thanks to community member sniffit for helping diagnose this issue and contributing to this guide.