Message Headers

All messages in the network protocol use the same container format, which provides a required multi-field message header and an optional payload. The message header format is:

Bytes	Name	Data Type	Description
4	start string	char[4]	Magic bytes indicating the originating network; used to seek to next message when stream state is unknown.
12	command name	char[12]	ASCII string which identifies what message type is contained in the payload. Followed by nulls (0x00) to pad out byte count; for example: version\0\0\0\0\0.
4	payload size	uint32_t	Number of bytes in payload. The current maximum number of bytes (MAX_SIZE) allowed in the payload by Dash Core is 32 MiB—messages with a payload size larger than this will be dropped or rejected.
4	checksum	char[4]	Added in protocol version 209. First 4 bytes of SHA256(SHA256(payload)) in internal byte order. If payload is empty, as in verack and getaddr messages, the checksum is always 0x5df6e0e2 (SHA256(SHA256())).

Example

The following example is an annotated hex dump of a mainnet message header from a verack message which has no payload.

bf0c6bbd ................... Start string: Mainnet
76657261636b000000000000 ... Command name: verack + null padding
00000000 ................... Byte count: 0
5df6e0e2 ................... Checksum: SHA256(SHA256(<empty>))