Will transactions created with a local cardano-node be faster if I add more relays to my node topology file?

Question

I'm using a local cardano-node to do some transactions from time to time. Recently I noticed some error messages in the logs of the node. It seemed like the connection to the relays-new.cardano-mainnet.iohk.io relay had some problems.

While searching for ways to solve this, I realized that I can set up multiple relay nodes in my mainnet-topology.json file. Is this something one should do? Will it make the node more resilient and will it improve transaction speed?

Bonus question: Where can I find a list of relay nodes (including port and valency)?

Answer 1

If your connection(s) to the IOHK-hosted relays was in fact the problem, then yes, connecting to other SPO relay nodes should help alleviate the issue.

I couldn't find one single list containing pools' public facing relays, but if you search for a specific pools' metadata using any explorer like Cardanoscan, you can find their metadata URLs which contain their relays' info. I'd recommend having a good number of single pool operators as buddy relays. You can refer to the single pool alliance topology registry for a list of such pools

Alternatively, Guild Operators' topologyUpdater script allows SPOs to automatically push their relays' IPs and ports to one location where it also pulls from to update everybody. This greatly simplifies the process of finding peers, though it is heavily centralized and only intended as a stopgap until full p2p is released.