This document describes mechanisms that a peer can use to locate and establish a Peer Protocol connection to an admitting peer in order to join an overlay network. In the first mechanism, the joining peer uses multicast to locate a bootstrap peer; in the second, the node uses one or more bootstrap servers to locate a bootstrap peer; in both cases, the bootstrap peer then proxies the request by the joining peer on to the admitting peer. Each mechanism has its advantages and disadvantages, and a node can utilize both.