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web4

TL;DR

What is web4?

  • Decentralised ownership and hosting
  • Content permanence by default, no more expired links
  • Offline friendly
  • Web presence controlled by user
  • Interactive mobile apps linked together as websites, no appstores

How it works?

You only need to deploy single smart contract using WebAssembly to host your app HTTP backend, static resources and blockchain logic.

There is an HTTP gateway to NEAR blockchain which allows smart contract to handle arbitrary GET requests.

Every smart contract on NEAR also gets corresponding API endpoint which can be accessed through regular HTTP requests.

Authentication

Web4 provides simplified authentication flow:

  • Login via /web4/login endpoint
  • Logout via /web4/logout endpoint
  • Current account ID is available via web4_account_id cookie
  • App-specific private key, if used, is stored in web4_private_key cookie
  • Transactions can be submitted via POST requests to /web4/contract/{contract_id}/{method_name}

Example usage in JavaScript:

// Login
window.location.href = '/web4/login'

// Check if user is logged in
const accountId = Cookies.get('web4_account_id');

// Logout
window.location.href = '/web4/logout'

// Submit transaction
await fetch('/web4/contract/example.near/someMethod', {
    method: 'POST',
    body: JSON.stringify({ param1: 'value1' })
})

This allows seamless integration with existing web frameworks while maintaining security through NEAR wallet.

Known web4 sites

Useful tools

Example contract (in AssemblyScript)

export function web4_get(request: Web4Request): Web4Response {
    if (request.path == '/test') {
        // Render HTML with form to submit a message
        return htmlResponse(form({ action: "/web4/contract/guest-book.testnet/addMessage" }, [
            textarea({ name: "text" }),
            button({ name: "submit" }, ["Post"])
        ]));
    }


    if (request.path == '/messages') {
        const getMessagesUrl = '/web4/contract/guest-book.testnet/getMessages';
        // Request preload of dependency URLs
        if (!request.preloads) {
            return preloadUrls([getMessagesUrl]);
        }

        // Render HTML with messages
        return htmlResponse('messages: ' + util.bytesToString(request.preloads.get(getMessagesUrl).body)!);
    }

    if (request.accountId) {
        // User is logged in, we can welcome them
        return htmlResponse('Hello to <b>' +  request.accountId! + '</b> from <code>' + request.path + '</code>');
    }

    // Demonstrate serving content from IPFS
    if (request.path == "/") {
        return bodyUrl('ipfs://bafybeib72whzo2qiore4q6sumdteh6akewakrvukvqmx4n6kk7nwzinpaa/')
    }

    // By default return 404 Not Found
    return status(404);
}

Basically smart contract just needs to implement web4_get method to take in and return data in specific format.

Request

@nearBindgen
class Web4Request {
    accountId: string | null;
    path: string;
    params: Map<string, string>;
    query: Map<string, Array<string>>;
    preloads: Map<string, Web4Response>;
}

Response

@nearBindgen
class Web4Response {
    contentType: string;
    status: u32;
    body: Uint8Array;
    bodyUrl: string;
    preloadUrls: string[] = [];
    cacheControl: string;
}

Loading data

You can load any required data in web4_get by returning list of URLs to preload in preloadUrls field.

E.g. contract above preloads /web4/contract/guest-book.testnet/getMessages. This class getMessages view method on guest-book.testnet contract.

After data is preloaded web4_get gets called again with loaded data injected into preloads.

Posting transactions

You can post transaction by making a POST request to corresponding URL.

E.g contract above preloads has form that gets posted to /web4/contract/guest-book.testnet/addMessage URL. This URL submits transaction which calls addMessage method on guest-book.testnet contract.

Note that both JSON and form data are supported. When transaction is processed by server user gets redirected to wallet for signing this transaction.

In future there is a plan to allow sending app-specific key as a cookie to sign limited subset of transactions without confirmation in wallet.

Caching considerations

By default all HTML responses can be cached for 1 minute (assumed dynamic content). All images, videos, audio and CSS can be cached for 1 day (assumed static content).

You can override this by setting cacheControl field in response.

It's not recommended to cache content for too long as then it not going to be hot on IPFS gateway.

Rust support

Check out sample web4 project made with Rust.

near.page

You can access your deployed smart contract on https://near.page. This is hosted web4 gateway provided to all .near accounts. For now it's free, but in future you might have to pay depending on how much traffic you get.

Every contract gets corresponding domain, e.g. check out https://web4.near.page rendered by web4.near contract.

testnet.page

This works same as near.page but for contracts deployed on testnet. Every account.testnet gets corresponding account.testnet.page domain.

Running locally

  1. Install mkcert.
  2. Install local certificate authority (this allows browser to trust self-signed certificates): 
    mkcert -install
  3. Create *.near.page SSL certificate: 
    mkcert "*.near.page"
  4. Run web4 man-in-the-middle proxy locally: 
    IPFS_GATEWAY_URL=https://ipfs.near.social NODE_ENV=mainnet WEB4_KEY_FILE=./_wildcard.near.page-key.pem WEB4_CERT_FILE=./_wildcard.near.page.pem npx web4-near
  5. Setup browser to use automatic proxy configuration file at http://localhost:8080/ or to use localhost:8080 as an HTTPS proxy server.

Environment variables

  • NODE_ENV - mainnet or testnet to select network ID to use with NEAR config and key store
  • IPFS_GATEWAY_URL - URL of IPFS gateway to use for ipfs:// URLs
  • WEB4_KEY_FILE - path to SSL key file
  • WEB4_CERT_FILE - path to SSL certificate file
  • PORT - port to listen on (default: 3000)
  • PROXY_PORT - port to listen on for proxy requests (default: 8080). HTTPS MITM proxy is run on this port when WEB4_KEY_FILE and WEB4_CERT_FILE are provided.
  • FAST_NEAR_URL - URL of fast-near RPC server to use for NEAR API. Overrides NEAR RPC config selected by NODE_ENV.

Priorities

This project aims to make trade offs based on these priorities:

  • Performance
  • Ease of deployment at scale
  • Hackability
  • Correctness
  • Completeness

Roadmap

  • Serve websites
    • Serve arbitrary GET requests
    • Serve arbitrary POST requests
    • Load content from HTTP URLs
    • Load content from IPFS URLs
    • Load content from NEARFS URLs
    • Load content from ArWeave URLs
    • Route configuration for better caching, etc
  • Access NEAR
    • Access view calls via GET requests
    • Access view calls via POST requests
    • Post transactions with POST through wallet redirect
    • Polish login and transaction flow with wallet
    • Support different wallets from wallet-selector
  • Decentralization
    • Standalone server to run
    • .near domain support through HTTPS MITM proxy
    • Proxy auto-configuration file
    • User-friendly installer
    • Expose IPFS gateway on every .near.page website
    • Expose fast-near RPC on every .near.page website
  • Prepare for wider use
    • Publish standalone package runnable with npx
    • Tests
    • Documentation
    • Landing page
    • Examples on different languages
    • More efficient binary-based API (web4_raw_get)
    • Custom domain support
    • Abuse report system (token curated registry or smth like that)
    • Billing
  • Future direction
    • Upload to IPFS and pin (see web4-deploy)
    • Upload to ArWeave
    • Built-in per user statsd, including over http
    • Pubsub protocol
    • Direct messages protocol
    • Indexer API
    • Private storage
    • Private messages
    • Voice API
    • web4 wallet
    • App launcher for wallet (pre-selecting necessary account in app)
    • Instant mobile apps using WebAssembly