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The contents of this repo have been merged into ipfs/js-ipfs.
Please open issues or submit PRs there.
The JavaScript HTTP client library for IPFS implementations.
A client library for the IPFS HTTP API, implemented in JavaScript. This client library implements the interface-ipfs-core enabling applications to change between an embedded js-ipfs node and any remote IPFS node without having to change the code. In addition, this client library implements a set of utility functions.
Lead Maintainer
Table of Contents
Install
This module uses node.js, and can be installed through npm:
npm install --save ipfs-http-client
We support both the Current and Active LTS versions of Node.js. Please see nodejs.org for what these currently are.
Running the daemon with the right port
To interact with the API, you need to have a local daemon running. It needs to be open on the right port. 5001
is the default, and is used in the examples below, but it can be set to whatever you need.
# Show the ipfs config API port to check it is correct
> ipfs config Addresses.API
/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001
# Set it if it does not match the above output
> ipfs config Addresses.API /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001
# Restart the daemon after changing the config
# Run the daemon
> ipfs daemon
Importing the module and usage
const ipfsClient = require('ipfs-http-client')
// connect to ipfs daemon API server
const ipfs = ipfsClient('http://localhost:5001') // (the default in Node.js)
// or connect with multiaddr
const ipfs = ipfsClient('/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001')
// or using options
const ipfs = ipfsClient({ host: 'localhost', port: '5001', protocol: 'http' })
// or specifying a specific API path
const ipfs = ipfsClient({ host: '1.1.1.1', port: '80', apiPath: '/ipfs/api/v0' })
Importing a sub-module and usage
const bitswap = require('ipfs-http-client/src/bitswap')('/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001')
const list = await bitswap.wantlist(key)
// ...
In a web browser
through Browserify
Same as in Node.js, you just have to browserify the code before serving it. See the browserify repo for how to do that.
See the example in the examples folder to get a boilerplate.
through webpack
See the example in the examples folder to get an idea on how to use js-ipfs-http-client
with webpack.
from CDN
Instead of a local installation (and browserification) you may request a remote copy of IPFS API from unpkg CDN.
To always request the latest version, use the following:
<script src="https://unpkg.com/ipfs-http-client/dist/index.min.js"></script>
Note: remove the .min
from the URL to get the human-readable (not minified) version.
For maximum security you may also decide to:
- reference aΒ specific version of IPFSΒ API (to prevent unexpected breakingΒ changes whenΒ aΒ newer latestΒ version isΒ published)
- generate a SRI hash of thatΒ version andΒ useΒ it toΒ ensureΒ integrity
- set the CORS settings attribute toΒ make anonymousΒ requests toΒ CDN
Example:
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/dist/index.js"
integrity="sha384-5bXRcW9kyxxnSMbOoHzraqa7Z0PQWIao+cgeg327zit1hz5LZCEbIMx/LWKPReuB"
crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
CDN-based IPFS API provides the IpfsHttpClient
constructor as a method of the global window
object. Example:
const ipfs = window.IpfsHttpClient({ host: 'localhost', port: 5001 })
If you omit the host and port, the client will parse window.host
, and use this information. This also works, and can be useful if you want to write apps that can be run from multiple different gateways:
const ipfs = window.IpfsHttpClient()
CORS
In a web browser IPFSΒ HTTP client (either browserified orΒ CDN-based) might encounter an error saying that the origin is not allowed. This would be a CORS ("Cross Origin Resource Sharing") failure: IPFSΒ servers areΒ designed toΒ reject requests from unknown domains by default. You can whitelist the domain that you are calling from by changing your ipfs config like this:
$ ipfs config --json API.HTTPHeaders.Access-Control-Allow-Origin '["http://example.com"]'
$ ipfs config --json API.HTTPHeaders.Access-Control-Allow-Methods '["PUT", "POST", "GET"]'
Custom Headers
If you wish to send custom headers with each request made by this library, for example, the Authorization header. You can use the config to do so:
const ipfs = ipfsClient({
host: 'localhost',
port: 5001,
protocol: 'http',
headers: {
authorization: 'Bearer ' + TOKEN
}
})
Global Timeouts
To set a global timeout for all requests pass a value for the timeout
option:
// Timeout after 10 seconds
const ipfs = ipfsClient({ timeout: 10000 })
// Timeout after 2 minutes
const ipfs = ipfsClient({ timeout: '2m' })
// see https://www.npmjs.com/package/parse-duration for valid string values
Usage
API
js-ipfs-http-client
follows the spec defined byinterface-ipfs-core
, which concerns the interface to expect from IPFS implementations. This interface is a currently active endeavor. You can use it today to consult the methods available.
Files
-
MFS (mutable file system) specific
ipfs.files.cp([from, to])
ipfs.files.flush([path])
ipfs.files.ls([path], [options])
ipfs.files.mkdir(path, [options])
ipfs.files.mv([from, to])
ipfs.files.read(path, [options])
ipfs.files.rm(path, [options])
ipfs.files.stat(path, [options])
ipfs.files.write(path, content, [options])
Explore the Mutable File System through interactive coding challenges in our ProtoSchool tutorial.
Graph
-
ipfs.dag.get(cid, [path], [options])
ipfs.dag.put(dagNode, [options])
ipfs.dag.tree(cid, [path], [options])
Explore the DAG API through interactive coding challenges in our ProtoSchool tutorial.
-
ipfs.object.data(multihash, [options])
ipfs.object.get(multihash, [options])
ipfs.object.links(multihash, [options])
ipfs.object.new([template])
ipfs.object.patch.addLink(multihash, DAGLink, [options])
ipfs.object.patch.appendData(multihash, data, [options])
ipfs.object.patch.rmLink(multihash, DAGLink, [options])
ipfs.object.patch.setData(multihash, data, [options])
ipfs.object.put(obj, [options])
ipfs.object.stat(multihash, [options])
Network
Node Management
-
ipfs.dns(domain)
ipfs.id()
ipfs.ping(id, [options])
ipfs.stop()
. Alias toipfs.shutdown
.ipfs.version()
-
log
ipfs.log.level(subsystem, level, [options])
ipfs.log.ls()
ipfs.log.tail()
Additional Options
All core API methods take additional options
specific to the HTTP API:
headers
- An object or Headers instance that can be used to set custom HTTP headers. Note that this option can also be configured globally via the constructor options.signal
- AnAbortSignal
that can be used to abort the request on demand.timeout
- A number or string specifying a timeout for the request. If the timeout is reached before data is received aTimeoutError
is thrown. If a number is specified it is interpreted as milliseconds, if a string is passed, it is intepreted according toparse-duration
. Note that this option can also be configured globally via the constructor options.searchParams
- An object orURLSearchParams
instance that can be used to add additional query parameters to the query string sent with each request.
Instance Utils
ipfs.getEndpointConfig()
Call this on your client instance to return an object containing the host
, port
, protocol
and api-path
.
Static Types and Utils
Aside from the default export, ipfs-http-client
exports various types and utilities that are included in the bundle:
Buffer
multiaddr
multibase
multicodec
multihash
CID
globSource
(not available in the browser)urlSource
These can be accessed like this, for example:
const { CID } = require('ipfs-http-client')
// ...or from an es-module:
import { CID } from 'ipfs-http-client'
Glob source
A utility to allow files on the file system to be easily added to IPFS.
globSource(path, [options])
path
: A path to a single file or directory to glob fromoptions
: Optional optionsoptions.recursive
: Ifpath
is a directory, use option{ recursive: true }
to add the directory and all its sub-directories.options.ignore
: To exclude file globs from the directory, use option{ ignore: ['ignore/this/folder/**', 'and/this/file'] }
.options.hidden
: Hidden/dot files (files or folders starting with a.
, for example,.git/
) are not included by default. To add them, use the option{ hidden: true }
.
Returns an async iterable that yields { path, content }
objects suitable for passing to ipfs.add
.
Example
const IpfsHttpClient = require('ipfs-http-client')
const { globSource } = IpfsHttpClient
const ipfs = IpfsHttpClient()
for await (const file of ipfs.add(globSource('./docs', { recursive: true }))) {
console.log(file)
}
/*
{
path: 'docs/assets/anchor.js',
cid: CID('QmVHxRocoWgUChLEvfEyDuuD6qJ4PhdDL2dTLcpUy3dSC2'),
size: 15347
}
{
path: 'docs/assets/bass-addons.css',
cid: CID('QmPiLWKd6yseMWDTgHegb8T7wVS7zWGYgyvfj7dGNt2viQ'),
size: 232
}
...
*/
URL source
A utility to allow content from the internet to be easily added to IPFS.
urlSource(url)
url
: A string URL orURL
instance to send HTTP GET request to
Returns an async iterable that yields { path, content }
objects suitable for passing to ipfs.add
.
Example
const IpfsHttpClient = require('ipfs-http-client')
const { urlSource } = IpfsHttpClient
const ipfs = IpfsHttpClient()
for await (const file of ipfs.add(urlSource('https://ipfs.io/images/ipfs-logo.svg'))) {
console.log(file)
}
/*
{
path: 'ipfs-logo.svg',
cid: CID('QmTqZhR6f7jzdhLgPArDPnsbZpvvgxzCZycXK7ywkLxSyU'),
size: 3243
}
*/
Development
Testing
We run tests by executing npm test
in a terminal window. This will run both Node.js and Browser tests, both in Chrome and PhantomJS. To ensure that the module conforms with the interface-ipfs-core
spec, we run the batch of tests provided by the interface module, which can be found here.
Contribute
The js-ipfs-http-client is a work in progress. As such, there's a few things you can do right now to help out:
- Check out the existing issues!
- Perform code reviews. More eyes will help a) speed the project along b) ensure quality and c) reduce possible future bugs.
- Add tests. There can never be enough tests. Note that interface tests exist inside
interface-ipfs-core
. - Contribute to the FAQ repository with any questions you have about IPFS or any of the relevant technology. A good example would be asking, 'What is a merkledag tree?'. If you don't know a term, odds are, someone else doesn't either. Eventually, we should have a good understanding of where we need to improve communications and teaching together to make IPFS and IPNS better.
Want to hack on IPFS?
Historical context
This module started as a direct mapping from the go-ipfs cli to a JavaScript implementation, although this was useful and familiar to a lot of developers that were coming to IPFS for the first time, it also created some confusion on how to operate the core of IPFS and have access to the full capacity of the protocol. After much consideration, we decided to create interface-ipfs-core
with the goal of standardizing the interface of a core implementation of IPFS, and keep the utility functions the IPFS community learned to use and love, such as reading files from disk and storing them directly to IPFS.