Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) Git Remote Helper

Push and fetch commits to IPFS. Updates are broadcast to the IOTA tangle where others may retrieve the most recent version.

Installation

npm install --global git-remote-ipfs-mam

Usage

(Insecure) Cloud Backup

1. git remote add ipfs ipfs+mam://myproject
2. git push ipfs --tags
3. git push ipfs --all
4. Pin the resultant hash on a pinning service.

Push master with tags and get an IPFS CID back:

git push --tags ipfs+mam:: master

Pull the most recent version:

git pull ipfs+mam::Qma5iwyvJqxzHqCT9aqyc7dxZXXGoDeSUyPYFqkCWGJw92

Clone a repository:

git clone ipfs::Qma5iwyvJqxzHqCT9aqyc7dxZXXGoDeSUyPYFqkCWGJw92 repo

See debugging info:

IGIS_DEBUG=t git push ipfs::

IPFS Data Structures

This program is an extension of git-remote-ipfs. For information about the IPFS file structure, see that repository.

IOTA Data Structures

In IOTA, it is possible to write to any address. A Masked Authentication Message (MAM) channel is formed by including in each published message the next address that will be used.

When a repository is published, this remote publishes a signed JSON Linked Data object to the MAM channel for the format:

{
  '@context': {
    schema: 'http://schema.org/',
    action: 'schema:action',
    agent: 'schema:name',
    repository: 'schema:url',
    publisher: 'schema:url',
    next_root: 'schema:url',
    published_at: 'schema:datetime',
  },
  action: 'RepositoryUpdate',
  repository: 'ipfs://QmThisIsTheCIDOfTheRepo',
  publisher: 'did:key:zABase58EncodedED25519Key',
  next_root: `iota://NEXT9TANGLE9ADDRESS9IN9THE9MAM9TREE:TAG9FROM9REPO9UUID`,
  agent: 'git-remote-ipfs+mam',
  published_at: new Date(),
  'https://w3id.org/security#proof': {…}
}

Additionally, a signed JSON-LD object is published to the tangle address 99IPFS9MAM9CHNL9LINK9VA99${multicodec_of_repo_cid} of the format:

{
  '@context': {
    schema: 'http://schema.org/',
    action: 'schema:action',
    agent: 'schema:name',
    publisher: 'schema:url',
    bundle: 'schema:url',
    published_at: 'schema:datetime',
  },
  action: 'MAMLink',
  publisher: 'did:key:zABase58EncodedED25519Key',
  bundle: `iota:bundle://IOTA9BUNDLE9HASH9In9MAM9TREE`,
  agent: 'git-remote-ipfs+mam',
  published_at: new Date(),
  'https://w3id.org/security#proof': {…}
}

If a different remote is asked to clone from that CID, it can check that address and get the bundle hash of a message in the channel. The publisher field is also present in the IPFS repository, so the user is able to verify the signatures (and differentiate between genuine messages and those inserted by an attacker).

License

MIT