Kademlia is a DHT for decentralized peer to peer computer networks. It specifies the structure of the network and the exchange of information through node lookups. The nodes communicate among themselves using UDP. A virtual or overlay network is formed and each node identified by a node ID.
What is a k-bucket in Kademlia?
In the Kademlia literature, the lists are referred to as k-buckets. k is a system wide number, like 20. Every k-bucket is a list having up to k entries inside; i.e. for a network with k=20, each node will have lists containing up to 20 nodes for a particular bit (a particular distance from itself).
How do Kademlia nodes communicate among themselves?
Kademlia nodes communicate among themselves using UDP. A virtual or overlay network is formed by the participant nodes. Each node is identified by a number or node ID. The node ID serves not only as identification, but the Kademlia algorithm uses the node ID to locate values (usually file hashes or keywords).
What is the size of the routing table in Kademlia?
An actual Kademlia implementation does not have a fixed size routing table, but a dynamic sized one. Kademlia routing tables consist of a list for each bit of the node ID. (e.g. if a node ID consists of 128 bits, a node will keep 128 such lists .)
