IPNS-Link-gateway

Prototype implementation of IPNS-Link-gateway.

You can either run it locally for yourself or host it publicly.
This implementation redirects almost all requests for static content to an IPFS-Gateway, in order to offload itself.
This implementation doesn't support HTTP/2. It prefers HTTP/1.1 but can't support persistent connections. To enable HTTP2 and persistent connections, however, you can simply put a capable reverse-proxy in front. If you choose to use Caddy for this job, which helps with automatic HTTPS too, this project repository contains a ready Caddyfile. See below for a setup guide.
This implementation is optimized to save as much bandwidth as possible. While idle, viz. serving no requests, the IPFS node at the backend is paused with a SIGSTOP.

HELP WANTED: Port the codebase to Go. Get in touch if you're interested.

Download:

git clone https://github.com/ipns-link/ipns-link-gateway

Go to the downloaded git-repo:
```
cd ipns-link-gateway
```
Install the non-standard dependencies. The Heroku buildpack within this repository can be used here
```
bin/compile
```

Launch:

./ipns-link-gateway -a "AnyAlphanumericPassword"

See available command-line options with:

./ipns-link-gateway -h

If you have IPFS Companion running, you can integrate this gateway with it as follows.

Run an IPFS node and thus a local IPFS Gateway at say localhost:8080. This is to serve static content.

Point your IPNS-Link-gateway to this local IPFS-Gateway as :

export IPFS_SUBD_GW="http://localhost:8080" IPFS_PATH_GW="http://localhost:8080"

Launch your IPNS-Link-gateway at say port 8000. This is to serve dynamic content.
```
./ipns-link-gateway -p 8000
```
Point your IPFS Companion to http://localhost:8000 as the local gateway and activate the use of subdomains.
To browse an IPNS-Link-exposed site now, you just simply access the URI: ipns://IPNSNameOfTheSite

Head over to your DNS provider and add to/edit your DNS records as follows:

Type Name Points to

A @ Static public IPv4 of your host

CNAME www @

CNAME ipns @

CNAME ipfs @

CNAME *.ipns @

CNAME *.ipfs @
Generate an API token for programatically editing your DNS records.
Test if gateway is running locally. This makes sure you've all the dependencies in place. Once tested, kill the gateway using its PID.
Open ports 443 (HTTPS) and 80 (HTTP) for incoming traffic.
Install Caddy for Linux amd64, custom built with your DNS provider's plugin. For example's sake, we shall assume your DNS provider is CloudFlare. Tip: Download the binary with curl -Lo caddy "URL TO DOWNLOAD" instead of wget. Then,chmod +x caddy and sudo install caddy /usr/local/bin
Edit the crontab file within this repo by putting appropriate values for all the environment variables
Set up a cronjob for root as instructed in the crontab file.
Launch the script : sudo /path/to/edited/crontab/file. This would launch the gateway and caddy with progress logged in cron.log and caddy.log within the repo.
In a browser, test if the gateway is accessible at your domain.

Type	Name	Points to
A	@	Static public IPv4 of your host
CNAME	www	@
CNAME	ipns	@
CNAME	ipfs	@
CNAME	*.ipns	@
CNAME	*.ipfs	@

Let us know anytime you're stuck. We'll help.

Verify account
Edit config_var to : URL: https://domain.tld and Password: AnyAlphanumericString
Add wild-card domain: *.domain.tld
Manage SSL or use Cloudflare

If you're hosting a public gateway, please note these.

Set up an email id with your purchased domain: contact@domain.tld. You might use a free email-forwarding service such as https://improvmx.com/ for this step. Also see https://improvmx.com/guides/send-emails-using-gmail/.
Setup your own payment portal or get a crypto wallet.
Edit the html files to reflect your contact details and payment portals.
Create an issue at the official public-gateway-registry to let us know of your gateway.
If you receive any request to block specific sites from being accessed using your public gateway please let us know.
You might experience some OOM (out-of-memory) related outage from time to time. Periodic restarts can avoid this for now. Hopefully, this will be fixed soon.