IPFS – How to Keep IPFS Files Alive Online Forever

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I'm using IPFS to host a website and I need a way to keep the website files online all the time.

I know that ipfs has a garbage collector that removes the content after 24 hours.

And that if I pin the content with ipfs pin add <file> then it's like adding the file again so it's not deleted from the network.

Now my question is How do I keep my IPFS files online forever?

Can I create a cron job to keep re-pinning the content every 24 hours? or is there a better way?

Best Answer

Once a piece of content is pinned, it is stored forever on your node until you explicitly unpin it. There is no need to pin a file more than once. If you pin a file, it never gets garbage collected like the files that are not pinned do.

From the IPFS Pinning Example:

A pinned object cannot be garbage collected, if you dont believe me try this:
ipfs add foo
ipfs repo gc
ipfs cat <foo hash>

Related Solutions

Blockchain – How to Retrieve Stored Data Using Node.js, IPFS, and Embark

You may store links in Ethereum blockchain using smart contract similar to this one:

contract LinkRegistrar {
  address private owner;

  event Link (string link);

  constructor () public {
    owner = msg.sender;
  }

  function registerLink (string memory link) public {
    require (msg.sender == owner);
    emit Link (link);
  }
}

This will put links into transaction receipts in form of logged events, where links could be easily queried from. See documentation for more details about what events are and how to query them.

IPFS Files – How to Retrieve an IPFS File/JSON with Pinata?

To access pinned files on IPFS via pinata (ie using pinata as a gateway, files can be pinned via whatever pining-provider), you can use their gateway: https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/{your hash}

ipfs.io has a gateway too: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/{your hash}

In a programmatic way, there are packages for various languages (for instance this for nodeJS: https://www.npmjs.com/package/js-ipfs-fetch)

Or you can run your own IPFS node and use it in a P2P way to retrieve data from other nodes, as described here: https://docs.ipfs.io/how-to/exchange-files-between-nodes/#prerequisites

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Blockchain – How to Retrieve Stored Data Using Node.js, IPFS, and Embark

IPFS Files – How to Retrieve an IPFS File/JSON with Pinata?

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