So I decided to take a second, separate server and have it connect to the primary machine. That way, I can have two copies of the block chain at all times, but with just one machine pulling transactions from the Internet.
On the main server, I put these lines in place:
addnode=
On the secondary server, I put these lines in place:
listen=1 # Necessary, otherwise it will not listen on 8333 with "connect" line present
connect=
I started each server and it worked beautifully... for a while. There is a point where the connection gets closed. I'm not sure why it gets closed, but it does. After losing the connection, the secondary machine keeps trying to reconnect to the primary machine, but the main machine rejects the connection. I checked and it has 8 active external connections, so I guess that's why.
My question is: how can I force the primary machine to accept that connection from the secondary machine after a disconnect? Or, how can I force it to connect to the secondary machine and keep trying indefinitely? Is this a possible bug or just something I've not configured properly?
PS: Running version 0.8.5 on Linux.