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Does every peer become a DHT node every time it requests peers for a particular file? or do nodes exist independently of peers? in essence, how do you become a node? can you be a peer but not a node?
I'm sorry if the question is too simple (noob here) but I wasn't able to find an answer in any other place. The terminology I'm using is the same that is used here.
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The DHT is composed of nodes and stores the location of peers. BitTorrent clients include a DHT node, which is used to contact other nodes in the DHT to get the location of peers to download from using the BitTorrent protocol.
Should you use DHT? If you only use private trackers it has not effect to you, but if you use public ones, then yes. It can help reduce tracker load.
Peer exchange or PEX is a communications protocol that augments the BitTorrent file sharing protocol. It allows a group of users (or peers) that are collaborating to share a given file to do so more swiftly and efficiently.
A distributed hash table (DHT) is a distributed system that provides a lookup service similar to a hash table: key–value pairs are stored in a DHT, and any participating node can efficiently retrieve the value associated with a given key.
It is possible to just be a DHT node (a bittorrent client with DHT enabled but no torrents for instance). It is also possible to just be a bittorrent peer (a bittorrent client with DHT disabled and at least one torrent started).
Since the DHT is not tied to any specific torrent, running a (DHT) node will help out the global DHT network by aiding in routing and storing of peer-lists for random torrents.
Conversely, it's possible to be a bittorrent peer without participating in the DHT at all. One could even make DHT lookups for a torrent and still not participate in the DHT (by not responding to any requests for instance).
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