Tutorial: Files on IPFS

These Lessons are tested with go-ipfs versions: 0.5.0, 0.9.0

Please update this file on github to reflect any other versions that have been tested.

Prerequisites

• You should have some familiarity with the command line.

• You should have ipfs installed - the previous tutorial has instructions for that

Learning Objectives

These Lessons will teach you how to

• Add files to your local IPFS node

• Read files out of your local IPFS node

• List the files in your IPFS node

• Tell IPFS to hold onto files by pinning them

Key Concepts

• Distinction between IPFS and your regular Filesystem

• Identifying files by their Hashes

• IPFS Garbage Collection

• Pinning files on an IPFS Node

Lessons

1. Lesson: Add Content to IPFS and Retrieve It
2. Lesson: Wrap Filenames and Directory Info around Content in IPFS
3. Lesson: Pinning - Tell IPFS to Keep a File

Next Steps

Once you know how to add files to IPFS and retrieve them, you will be ready to share those files on the P2P network following the Tutorial: Going Online - Joining the Distributed Web

If you're wondering how to update those files after you've shared them, see the Tutorial: Publishing Changes on the Permanent Web

If you want to see how to access those files from the conventional HTTP web, go to the Tutorial: Interacting with the Classical (HTTP) Web

If you want to know more about how IPFS stores this content internally using Merkle DAGs, go to the Tutorial: Merkle Trees and the IPFS DAG