[BUG] - Blocking All Incoming Connections on a Block Producer As Recommended Causes Block Propagation Issues

[ChangePool]

Internal/External
External

Area
Other Peer-to-Peer Network Topology

Summary
Blocking all incoming connections on a block-producing Cardano Node in a stake pool configuration and relying solely on outgoing, bi-directional connections with relays that the block producer initiates--as recommended in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOTfhcK-Wf4 at about 18 minutes--stops the mempool on the block producer from synchronizing with the network, creating block propagation issues.

Steps to reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. To stop all incoming connections from relays to the block producer, remove the block producer from the list of localRoot accessPoints in the topology.json file for all relays in a stake pool configuration.
2. Restart Cardano Node on all the relay nodes where you edited the topology.json file in step 1
3. To ensure an outgoing connection from the block producer, in the list of localRoot accessPoints in the topology.json file on the block producer ensure that at least one relay node is specified, and then restart Cardano Node on the block producer if you edited the topology.json file.
4. Using Cardano Tracer, monitor the .cardano.node.metrics.txsInMempool.int.val metric for the block producer to observe that the mempool no longer synchronizes with the network.

Expected behavior
When blocking all incoming connections from relays on the block producer and relying only on outgoing connections that the block producer establishes to create bi-directional connections with relays as recommended by Input Output, the mempool on the block producer should continue to propagate blocks successfully.

System info (please complete the following information):

• OS Name: Ubuntu
• OS Version 22.04
• Node version 10.5.1
• CLI version 10.11.0.0

[github-actions]

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