Is 8 the maximum number of incoming peer connections?

Question

The reference here for running the bitcoin daemon does not really clarify what maxconnections mean.

maxconnections=  Maintain at most  connections to peers (default: 125)

Is this the max connection for all inbound and outbound peer connections? Or is it just to one or the other? If I understand correctly, inbound connections are others trying to connect to your node for information (e.g. transaction) propagation, while outbound connections are your bitcoin daemon node connecting to others for information.

Here's another reference in one of the posted answers that stated 8 outbound peer connections is the max; it seems to imply that the number of outbound peer connections is unconfigurable. Furthermore, that maxconnections only controls the number of inbound connections and not outbound. Is this true?

I don't intend on being connected to by other peers (this decision is rather selfish, but that's besides the point), so I've blocked port 8333. I believe, effectively, blocking port 8333 will only stop peers from connecting to me (stops inbound) and not me connecting to peers (does not stop outbound). Is this right?

What implications do blocking port 8333 have on my bitcoin daemon from getting transactions? Does it get less transactions or get transactions slower? I've been noticing that for relatively long stretches of time (e.g. 20 seconds or so), sometimes I see no transactions come through.

Answer 1

The reference here for running the bitcoin daemon does not really clarify what maxconnections mean.

Furthermore, that maxconnections only controls the number of inbound connections and not outbound. Is this true?

maxconnections counts both inbound and outbound connections. If you have 8 outbound connections, you can only have 117 inbound connections.

Is 8 the maximum number of incoming peer connections?

No, 8 is the maximum number of outgoing connections.

I believe, effectively, blocking port 8333 will only stop peers from connecting to me (stops inbound) and not me connecting to peers (does not stop outbound). Is this right?

Yes, that's correct. Also, there's a setting to do this without firewall software - set listen=0

What implications do blocking port 8333 have on my bitcoin daemon from getting transactions? Does it get less transactions or get transactions slower?

That could happen in theory, but in my experience it still works pretty well.

Answer 2

Nick O'Dell has it right. To expand a bit on the last question:

What implications do blocking port 8333 have on my bitcoin daemon from getting transactions? Does it get less transactions or get transactions slower?

It has no impact. There are only ever 8 outgoing connections even if you disable this port or set listen=0. If you set maxconnections= significantly lower than 8, then you could (I suppose) start to have problems. If your addnode= or connect= were connecting you to a few slow/intermittent peers.

EDIT:

"I believe, effectively, blocking port 8333 will only stop peers from connecting to me (stops inbound) and not me connecting to peers (does not stop outbound). Is this right?"

It just occurred to me that yes if you block the port on the device hosting the node, it will be blocked. But with IPv6 now becoming more available from ISPs you can get inbound connections on 8333 even if you did not use UPNP, nor port forward on your router (many domestic routers do not support IPv6 filtering).