https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs
Tip revision: 2cb68b2210ba883bcd38a429ed62b7f832f8c064 authored by Jeromy Johnson on 11 February 2017, 23:31:13 UTC
Merge pull request #3673 from ipfs/release-0.4.5
Merge pull request #3673 from ipfs/release-0.4.5
Tip revision: 2cb68b2
README.md
# go-ipfs
[](http://ipn.io)
[](http://ipfs.io/)
[](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23ipfs)
[](https://github.com/RichardLitt/standard-readme)
[](https://godoc.org/github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs)
[](https://travis-ci.org/ipfs/go-ipfs)
> IPFS implementation in Go
IPFS is a global, versioned, peer-to-peer filesystem. It combines good ideas from
Git, BitTorrent, Kademlia, SFS, and the Web. It is like a single bittorrent swarm,
exchanging git objects. IPFS provides an interface as simple as the HTTP web, but
with permanence built in. You can also mount the world at /ipfs.
For more info see: https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs.
Please put all issues regarding IPFS _design_ in the
[ipfs repo issues](https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs/issues).
Please put all issues regarding the Go IPFS _implementation_ in [this repo](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues).
## Table of Contents
- [Security Issues](#security-issues)
- [Install](#install)
- [Install prebuilt packages](#install-prebuilt-packages)
- [Build from Source](#build-from-source)
- [Install Go](#install-go)
- [Download and Compile IPFS](#download-and-compile-ipfs)
- [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting)
- [Development Dependencies](#development-dependencies)
- [Updating](#updating)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [Getting Started](#getting-started)
- [Some things to try](#some-things-to-try)
- [Docker usage](#docker-usage)
- [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting-1)
- [Todo](#todo)
- [Contributing](#contributing)
- [Want to hack on IPFS?](#want-to-hack-on-ipfs)
- [License](#license)
## Security Issues
The IPFS protocol and its implementations are still in heavy development. This means that there may be problems in our protocols, or there may be mistakes in our implementations. And -- though IPFS is not production-ready yet -- many people are already running nodes in their machines. So we take security vulnerabilities very seriously. If you discover a security issue, please bring it to our attention right away!
If you find a vulnerability that may affect live deployments -- for example, by exposing a remote execution exploit -- please send your report privately to security@ipfs.io. Please DO NOT file a public issue. The GPG key for security@ipfs.io is [4B9665FB 92636D17 7C7A86D3 50AAE8A9 59B13AF3](https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x50AAE8A959B13AF3).
If the issue is a protocol weakness that cannot be immediately exploited or something not yet deployed, just discuss it openly.
## Install
The canonical download instructions for IPFS are over at: http://ipfs.io/docs/install/. It is **highly suggested** you follow those instructions if you are not interested in working on IPFS development.
### Install prebuilt packages
We host prebuilt binaries over at our [distributions page](https://ipfs.io/ipns/dist.ipfs.io#go-ipfs).
From there:
- Click the blue "Download go-ipfs" on the right side of the page.
- Open/extract the archive.
- Move `ipfs` to your path (`install.sh` can do it for you).
### Build from Source
#### Install Go
The build process for ipfs requires Go 1.7 or higher. If you don't have it: [Download Go 1.7+](https://golang.org/dl/).
You'll need to add Go's bin directories to your `$PATH` environment variable e.g., by adding these lines to your `/etc/profile` (for a system-wide installation) or `$HOME/.profile`:
```
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
```
(If you run into trouble, see the [Go install instructions](https://golang.org/doc/install)).
#### Download and Compile IPFS
go-ipfs differs from the vanilla `go get` flow: it uses
[gx](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx)/[gx-go](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx-go)
for dependency management.
First download `go-ipfs` without installing:
```
$ go get -u -d github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs
$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs
```
Then install `go-ipfs` and its dependencies, including `gx` and `gx-go`:
```
$ make install
```
#### Building on less common systems
If your operating system isn't officially supported, but you still want to try
building ipfs anyways (it should work fine in most cases), you can do the
following:
- Install gx: `go get -u github.com/whyrusleeping/gx`
- Install gx-go: `go get -u github.com/whyrusleeping/gx-go`
- Fetch ipfs source: `go get -d github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs 2> /dev/null`
- Enter source directory: `cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs`
- Install deps: `gx install`
- Install ipfs: `go install ./cmd/ipfs`
Note: This process may break if [gx](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx) or any of its dependencies break as `go get`
will always select the latest code for every dependency, often resulting in
mismatched APIs.
#### Troubleshooting
* Separate [instructions are available for building on Windows](docs/windows.md).
* `git` is required in order for `go get` to fetch all dependencies.
* Package managers often contain out-of-date `golang` packages.
Ensure that `go version` reports at least 1.7. See above for how to install go.
* If you are interested in development, please install the development
dependencies as well.
* *WARNING: Older versions of OSX FUSE (for Mac OS X) can cause kernel panics when mounting!*
We strongly recommend you use the [latest version of OSX FUSE](http://osxfuse.github.io/).
(See https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues/177)
* For more details on setting up FUSE (so that you can mount the filesystem), see the docs folder.
* Shell command completion is available in `misc/completion/ipfs-completion.bash`. Read [docs/command-completion.md](docs/command-completion.md) to learn how to install it.
* See the [init examples](https://github.com/ipfs/examples/tree/master/examples/init) for how to connect IPFS to systemd or whatever init system your distro uses.
### Development Dependencies
If you make changes to the protocol buffers, you will need to install the [protoc compiler](https://github.com/google/protobuf).
### Updating
IPFS has an updating tool that can be accessed through `ipfs update`. The tool is
not installed alongside IPFS in order to keep that logic independent of the main
codebase. To install `ipfs update`, [download it here](https://ipfs.io/ipns/dist.ipfs.io/#ipfs-update).
## Usage
```
ipfs - Global p2p merkle-dag filesystem.
ipfs [<flags>] <command> [<arg>] ...
SUBCOMMANDS
BASIC COMMANDS
init Initialize ipfs local configuration
add <path> Add a file to ipfs
cat <ref> Show ipfs object data
get <ref> Download ipfs objects
ls <ref> List links from an object
refs <ref> List hashes of links from an object
DATA STRUCTURE COMMANDS
block Interact with raw blocks in the datastore
object Interact with raw dag nodes
files Interact with objects as if they were a unix filesystem
ADVANCED COMMANDS
daemon Start a long-running daemon process
mount Mount an ipfs read-only mountpoint
resolve Resolve any type of name
name Publish or resolve IPNS names
dns Resolve DNS links
pin Pin objects to local storage
repo Manipulate an IPFS repository
NETWORK COMMANDS
id Show info about ipfs peers
bootstrap Add or remove bootstrap peers
swarm Manage connections to the p2p network
dht Query the DHT for values or peers
ping Measure the latency of a connection
diag Print diagnostics
TOOL COMMANDS
config Manage configuration
version Show ipfs version information
update Download and apply go-ipfs updates
commands List all available commands
Use 'ipfs <command> --help' to learn more about each command.
ipfs uses a repository in the local file system. By default, the repo is located
at ~/.ipfs. To change the repo location, set the $IPFS_PATH environment variable:
export IPFS_PATH=/path/to/ipfsrepo
```
## Getting Started
See also: http://ipfs.io/docs/getting-started/
To start using IPFS, you must first initialize IPFS's config files on your
system, this is done with `ipfs init`. See `ipfs init --help` for information on
the optional arguments it takes. After initialization is complete, you can use
`ipfs mount`, `ipfs add` and any of the other commands to explore!
### Some things to try
Basic proof of 'ipfs working' locally:
echo "hello world" > hello
ipfs add hello
# This should output a hash string that looks something like:
# QmT78zSuBmuS4z925WZfrqQ1qHaJ56DQaTfyMUF7F8ff5o
ipfs cat <that hash>
### Docker usage
An IPFS docker image is hosted at [hub.docker.com/r/ipfs/go-ipfs](https://hub.docker.com/r/ipfs/go-ipfs/).
To make files visible inside the container you need to mount a host directory
with the `-v` option to docker. Choose a directory that you want to use to
import/export files from IPFS. You should also choose a directory to store
IPFS files that will persist when you restart the container.
export ipfs_staging=</absolute/path/to/somewhere/>
export ipfs_data=</absolute/path/to/somewhere_else/>
Make sure docker can access these folders:
sudo chmod -R 777 /absolute/path/to/somewhere/
sudo chmod -R 777 /absolute/path/to/somewhere_else/
Start a container running ipfs and expose ports 4001, 5001 and 8080:
docker run -d --name ipfs_host -v $ipfs_staging:/export -v $ipfs_data:/data/ipfs -p 8080:8080 -p 4001:4001 -p 5001:5001 ipfs/go-ipfs:latest
Watch the ipfs log:
docker logs -f ipfs_host
Wait for ipfs to start. ipfs is running when you see:
Gateway (readonly) server
listening on /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/8080
You can now stop watching the log.
Run ipfs commands:
docker exec ipfs_host ipfs <args...>
For example: connect to peers
docker exec ipfs_host ipfs swarm peers
Add files:
cp -r <something> $ipfs_staging
docker exec ipfs_host ipfs add -r /export/<something>
Stop the running container:
docker stop ipfs_host
### Troubleshooting
If you have previously installed IPFS before and you are running into
problems getting a newer version to work, try deleting (or backing up somewhere
else) your IPFS config directory (~/.ipfs by default) and rerunning `ipfs init`.
This will reinitialize the config file to its defaults and clear out the local
datastore of any bad entries.
For any other problems, check the [issues list](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues)
and if you dont see your problem there, either come talk to us on irc (freenode #ipfs) or
file an issue of your own!
## Todo
An IPFS alpha version has been released in February 2015. Things left to be done are all marked as [issues](https://github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs/issues).
## Contributing
Please see [Contribute.md](contribute.md)!
This repository falls under the IPFS [Code of Conduct](https://github.com/ipfs/community/blob/master/code-of-conduct.md).
### Want to hack on IPFS?
[](https://github.com/ipfs/community/blob/master/contributing.md)
## License
MIT
