Bootstrapping is a vital core functionality required by every peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network. Nodes intending to participate in such an overlay network initially have to find at least one node that is already part of this network. While structured P2P networks (e.g. Distributed Hash Tables, DHTs) define rules about how to proceed after this point, unstructured P2P networks continue using bootstrapping techniques until they are sufficiently connected.

In this paper, we compare solutions applicable to the bootstrapping problem. Measurements of an existing system, the Gnutella web caches, highlight the inefficiency of this particular approach. Improved bootstrapping mechanisms could also incorporate locality-awareness into the process. We propose an advanced mechanism by which the overlay topology is – to some extent – matched with the underlying topology. Thereby, the performance of the overall system can be vastly improved.