Guide to installing ipfs on a public ip address with firewall and seperate user for ipfs daemon
This guide describes commands entered in the terminal window. If you are in a desktop enviornment, open a terminal window
There are plenty of guides on this
If you are not root, become root by executing the command: su
$ su Password: <enter password for root here> # _
The commands in this guide assume you are running as root unless otherwise noted.
In case you don't already have a couple packages, run these commands:
apt install -y apt-transport-https
apt install -y curl
The easist way I have found currently to install IPFS and keep it updated is to use the package maintained by "siderus"
Incorporated into this document below, the blog post on diong this is currently located here: https://blog.siderus.io/how-to-get-ipfs-on-ubuntu-debian-linux-d7920c1a42b7
To use it you need to run the following commands from your terminal:
curl https://get.siderus.io/key.public.asc | apt-key add - echo "deb https://get.siderus.io/ apt/" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/siderus.list apt update
Then install
apt install ipfs
If running behind a NAT router, or are comfortable running without a firewall you can skip this section.
If you already have a firewall on this machine, do not install UFW on top of it, but you should make sure that incoming traffic to port 4001 is allowed
apt install ufw
ufw allow 4001/tcp Rules updated Rules updated (v6)
If you use SSH to access your server, be sure to add an allow rule for SSH before activating the firewall
ufw allow 22/tcp Rules updated Rules updated (v6)
ufw enable Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)? y Firewall is active and enabled on system startup
Use the following command to add a user called IPFS, assigning a password that you will remember, and accepting all the defaults for the remaing question by pressing <ENTER>
adduser ipfs Adding user `ipfs' ... Adding new group `ipfs' (1001) ... Adding new user `ipfs' (1001) with group `ipfs' ... Creating home directory `/home/ipfs' ... Copying files from `/etc/skel' ... Enter new UNIX password: <enter password for new user here> Retype new UNIX password: <enter password for new user here> passwd: password updated successfully Changing the user information for ipfs Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: <ENTER> Room Number []: <ENTER> Work Phone []: <ENTER> Home Phone []: <ENTER> Other []: <ENTER> Is the information correct? [Y/n] y
use the following command to switch to being the new ipfs user
su - ipfs
Then initialize the IPFS repo with the following command:
ipfs initThen type exit to get back to the root account
Use this command or the editor of your choice to edit the IPFS config file:
nano ~ipfs/.ipfs/config
In the below example, the Storage Max has been increased to 300GB. You may want more or less depending on what you plan to host.
"Datastore": {
"StorageMax": "300GB",
"StorageGCWatermark": 90,
"GCPeriod": "1h",
"Spec": {
"mounts": [
{
and Save. In nano, press <CTRL>+X, and then y and <ENTER>
Create a service file using nano, or the editor of your choice
nano /etc/systemd/system/ipfs.servicePaste the following code into the editor
[Unit]
Description=IPFS daemon
After=network.target
[Service]
User=ipfs
LimitNOFILE=65536
Environment="IPFS_PATH=/home/ipfs/.ipfs"
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ipfs daemon --enable-namesys-pubsub
Restart=on-failure
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.targetand Save. In nano, press <CTRL>+X, and then y and <ENTER>
To start the service:
systemctl start ipfs
Then, if that seemed to work correctly, install the service so that it will start at every bootup with the following command:
systemctl enable ipfs Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ipfs.service → /etc/systemd/system/ipfs.service.