IPFS for decentralized user interfaces

You wrote an incredible new dapp. You've even written a user interface for it. But now you're afraid that somebody will attempt to censor it by bringing down your user interface, which is just one server off in the cloud. In this tutorial you learn how to avoid censorship by putting your user interface up on interplanetary file system (IPFS)(opens in a new tab) so anybody interested will be able to pin it on a server for future access.

You could use a third-party service such as Fleek(opens in a new tab) to do all the work. This tutorial is for people who want to do enough to understand what they are doing even if it is more work.

Getting started locally

There are multiple third-party IPFS providers(opens in a new tab), but it is best to start with running IPFS locally for testing.

1. Install the IPFS user interface(opens in a new tab).

2. Create a directory with your web site. If you are using Vite(opens in a new tab), use this command:

   1pnpm vite build
   

3. In IPFS Desktop, click Import > Folder and select the directory you created in the previous step.

4. Select the folder you just uploaded and click Rename. Give it a more meaningful name.

5. Select it again and click Share link. Copy the URL to the clipboard. The link would be similar to https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmaCuQ7yN6iyBjLmLGe8YiFuCwnePoKfVu6ue8vLBsLJQJ.

6. Click Status. Expand the Advanced tab to see the gateway address. For example, on my system the address is http://127.0.0.1:8080.

7. Combine the path from the link step with the gateway address to find your address. For example, for the example above, the URL is http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmaCuQ7yN6iyBjLmLGe8YiFuCwnePoKfVu6ue8vLBsLJQJ. Open that URL in a browser to see your site.

Uploading

So now you can use IPFS to serve files locally, which is not very exciting. The next step is to make them available for the world when you're offline.

There are a number of well known pinning services(opens in a new tab). Choose one of them. Whichever service you use, you need to create an account and provide it with the content identifier (CID) in your IPFS desktop.

Personally, I found 4EVERLAND(opens in a new tab) to be the easiest to use. Here are the directions for it:

1. Browse to the dashboard(opens in a new tab) and login with your wallet.

2. In the left sidebar click Storage > 4EVER Pin.

3. Click Upload > Selected CID. Give your content a name and provide the CID from IPFS desktop. At present a CID is a string that starts with Qm followed by 44 letters and digits that represent a base-58 encoded(opens in a new tab) hash, such as QmaCuQ7yN6iyBjLmLGe8YiFuCwnePoKfVu6ue8vLBsLJQJ, but that is likely to change(opens in a new tab).

4. The initial status is Queued. Reload until it changes to Pinned.

5. Click your CID to get the link. You can see my application here(opens in a new tab).

6. You might need to activate your account to have it pinned for more than a month. Account activation costs about $1. If you closed it, log out and log back in to be asked to activate again.

(opens in a new tab)Using from IPFS

At this point you have a link to a centralized gateway that serves your IPFS content. In short, your user interface may be a bit safer but it's still not censorship resistant. For real censorship resistance, users need to use IPFS directly from a browser(opens in a new tab).

Once you have that installed (and the desktop IPFS working), you can go to /ipfs/<CID>(opens in a new tab) on any site and you'll get that content, served in a decentralized manner.

Drawbacks

You cannot reliably delete IPFS files, so as long as you're modifying your user interface, it is probably best to either leave it centralized, or use interplanetary name system (IPNS)(opens in a new tab), a system that provides mutability on top of IPFS. Of course, anything that is mutable can be censored, in the case of IPNS by pressuing the person with the private key to which it corresponds.

Additionally, some packages have a problem with IPFS, so if your web site is very complicated that may not be a good solution. And of course, anything that relies on server integration cannot be decentralized just by having the client side on IPFS.

Conclusion

Just as Ethereum lets you decentralize the database and business logic aspects of your dapp, IPFS lets you decentralize the user interface. This lets you shut off one more attack vector against your dapp.