InterPlanetary File System

InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), is a content-addressable, peer-to-peer hypermedia distribution protocol. Nodes in the IPFS network form a distributed file system. IPFS is The Permanent Web.

IPFS Logo

IPFS is an open source project developed by Protocol Labs with help from the open source community.[1] It was initially designed by Juan Benet. [2]

Description

IPFS is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository. In other words, IPFS provides a high throughput content-addressed block storage model, with content-addressed hyperlinks. This forms a generalized Merkle DAG. IPFS combines a distributed hashtable, an incentivized block exchange, and a self-certifying namespace. IPFS has no single point of failure, and nodes do not need to trust each other.[3]

The filesystem can be accessed in a variety of ways, including via FUSE and over HTTP. A local file can be added to the IPFS filesystem, making it available to the world. Files are identified by their hashes, so it's caching-friendly. They are distributed using a Bittorrent-based protocol. Other users viewing the content aid in serving the content to others on the network. IPFS has a name service called IPNS, a global namespace based on PKI, serves to build trust chains, is compatible with other NSes and can map DNS, .onion, .bit, etc. to IPNS.[4]

Reception

The Wikipedia logo has an IPFS hash with the following code: QmRW3V9znzFW9M5FYbitSEvd5dQrPWGvPvgQD6LM22Tv8D. It can be accessed with that hash over HTTP by a public gateway or a local IPFS instance

Kyle Drake, the founder of web hosting service Neocities, has expressed the belief that IPFS is the replacement to HTTP and many other protocols and solutions. According to him, "[t]he way HTTP distributes content is fundamentally flawed, and no amount of performance tuneups or forcing broken CA SSL or whatever are going to fix that."[5]

External links

References

  1. ↑ "The IPFS Project". Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  2. ↑ "IPFS README - Who designed it?". Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  3. ↑ "The IPFS Project - How it works". Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "IPFS README". Retrieved 11 September 2015.
  5. ↑ "HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the distributed, permanent web". Retrieved 11 September 2015.
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