About Reseed hosts
Reseed hosts are needed to for bootstrapping, that is, providing the initial set of I2P nodes for your I2P node to talk to. Depending on the status of your node it may need to bootstrap every now and then if many of the nodes it knows of aren't contactable.
Reseeding is done over an encrypted connection and all of the bootstrap information is signed by the reseed host you connect to, making it impossible for an unauthenticated source to provide you with false information.
Running a Reseed host
Operating a reseed server can be accessible to any sysadmin familiar with I2P, and we encourage new reseed operators to get in contact with us at the development forums. The more reseed hosts that are run, the more resilient the I2P network becomes, and the harder it is to prevent users of I2P from connecting to the network.
Other ways of Reseeding
In order to make I2P more reslient, other kinds of reseeding are possible. One important way of carrying out a reseed is the file-based reseed, where a user with a running I2P router generates a reseed file for a friend and transfers it to them as a .zip file. Others use cloud-based infrastructure to resist censorship. These reseed methods provide functionality which aids people in situations where reseeds are restricted.
Thank you Reseed Operators
If you are running a reseed server, We would like to thank you for helping to make the I2P network stronger and more resilient than ever.
Thank you.