87 lines
3 KiB
Text
87 lines
3 KiB
Text
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This special remote stores file contents in [ipfs](http://ipfs.io/).
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Warning: As this page is being written, ipfs is still considered alpha
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quality code, not suitable for production use. Still, it's fun to play
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with, has some nice features and great potential, and git-annex can
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keep your data safe while you're using ipfs.
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## prerequisites
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* git-annex version 5.20141219 or newer, which has [[external]] special remote
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support.
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* Install [[external/git-annex-remote-ipfs]] somewhere in PATH
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and `chmod +x` the script.
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* Install [go-ipfs](https://github.com/jbenet/go-ipfs) somewhere in PATH.
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* Run `ipfs init` and start the `ipfs daemon`
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(Note that this special remote does not use ipfs's FUSE support; it
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communicates with ipfs using the `ipfs` command-line utility.)
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## configuration
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These parameters can be passed to `git annex initremote` to configure the
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remote:
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* `encryption` - One of "none", "hybrid", "shared", or "pubkey".
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See [[encryption]]. Note that this is git-annex's encryption, not ipfs's
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encryption.
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* `keyid` - Specifies the gpg key to use for [[encryption]].
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Setup example:
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# git annex initremote ipfs type=external externaltype=ipfs encryption=none
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## content distribution
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After `git annex copy --to ipfs`, a file will typically only have
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been copied to your computer's local ipfs object store. It will not reach
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other ipfs nodes on the network until they request the content.
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If you set up a clone of your repository on another computer, and install
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ipfs and enable the ipfs remote there, you can proceed with using it to get
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files that have been stored in ipfs:
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# git annex sync
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# git annex enableremote ipfs
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# git annex copy --from ipfs
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# content removal
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Removing content from ipfs requires all nodes that have a copy to decide to
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delete it. This is not something git-annex can arrange to happen, or
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reliably tell has happened, so `git annex drop --from ipfs` will always fail.
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## using ipfs addresses
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Once a file has been copied to ipfs, you can use `git annex whereis`
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to look up the ipfs address of the file:
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# git annex whereis somefile
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whereis somefile
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ed1c811d-fe42-4436-aa75-56566c990aa8 -- ipfs
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ipfs: QmYgXEfjsLbPvVKrrD4Hf6QvXYRPRjH5XFGajDqtxBnD4W
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In the example above, the ipfs address for the file is
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`QmYgXEfjsLbPvVKrrD4Hf6QvXYRPRjH5XFGajDqtxBnD4W`. You can give this
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address to any other ipfs user and they can use it to download the file!
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You can also use ipfs addresses with `git annex addurl`. For example:
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# git annex addurl ipfs:QmYgXEfjsLbPvVKrrD4Hf6QvXYRPRjH5XFGajDqtxBnD4W --file somefile
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That's a real file; try it!
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## future directions
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While perhaps useful, this is just a proof of concept. It's particularly
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lacking in that it doesn't integrate well git-annex's [[location_tracking]]
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with ipfs.
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Tracking which ipfs nodes have a copy of an annexed object
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would make this special remote work better. In particular, git-annex does
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not currently trust ipfs to contain a copy of an object, since it has no
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way of keeping track of which which ipfs nodes might contain it. So, eg,
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`git annex drop` will refuse to trust ipfs.
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