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One of the main problems while I was researching about status page services and saw many having the same doubts here was about where to deploy the status page.

One of the main problems while I was researching about status page services and saw many having the same doubts here was about where to deploy the status page. Besides this market has a lot of players even the biggest one had problem when the big S3 outage happened last year (see ref-1). What about do not depend on a centralized infrastructure to deploy you status page and kept always alive? This project aims to deploy you status page on a decentralized infrastructure IPFS (see ref-2), after installed it, you will be running a status page service on top of a local IPFS node. So you’ll be able to to publish you status pages on IPFS while being part of the network. I thought this use case fits perfect on a decentralized environment. You can deploy this service on a VPS for 1/4 of the price you pay for your current status page service provider. See an example of a status page deployed using D StatusPage: https://gw1.dstatuspage.net/ipfs/QmePTzsSVae8BK8antLHfV2xWfEf3C8px7yQ9gUX5PY1N3/ https://gw1.dstatuspage.net/ipfs/QmePTzsSVae8BK8antLHfV2xWfE... http://gw2.dstatuspage.net/ipfs/QmePTzsSVae8BK8antLHfV2xWfEf3C8px7yQ9gUX5PY1N3/ http://gw2.dstatuspage.net/ipfs/QmePTzsSVae8BK8antLHfV2xWfEf... What are you thoughts? https://www.dstatuspage.net https://www.dstatuspage.net https://github.com/paulogr/dstatuspage https://github.com/paulogr/dstatuspage This software is still in alpha state with basic status page service functionalities, feel free to ask for a feature or address any issue you have: https://github.com/paulogr/dstatuspage/issues https://github.com/paulogr/dstatuspage/issues - ref-1: https://blog.statuspage.io/a-birds-eye-view-of-the-amazon-s3-outage https://blog.statuspage.io/a-birds-eye-view-of-the-amazon-s3... - ref-2: https://ipfs.io https://ipfs.io The software will be distributed for free and open source under MIT license.

heavenlyblue 9y ago
So how do I (perma-)link the user to the latest status page?
- paulogr 9y ago
  IPFS has a so called IPNS system that use mutable hashes. So when you publish using this piece of software you got always a permanent link to share with your users.
  - foxhop 9y ago
    What if I wanted to always link to the latest, like from my normal HTTPS powered web site? Is there a way to link to the head so that it always references the latest version?
    - mstade 9y ago
      I believe that's what the previous poster means, you get a namespace that points to the canonical version of your resource, whatever that may be. Kind of like how HEAD is an alias for the latest SHA on a branch in git. But I don't know, this is just how I understood the previous comment.
    - jstanley 9y ago
      The latest would be a link like /ipns/yourcompany.com, and you'd have a TXT record pointing at your node's IPNS hash (or an IPFS content hash directly) and you update it by either updating what your node's IPNS hash points to, or by editing the DNS record to point to the latest IPFS content hash.
      - foxhop 9y ago
        Now I'm even more confused. I suppose I'll watch a talk on youtube or something. Edit: currently watching this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2rHlbB5i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2rHlbB5i0 (10 minutes)
        StreamBright 9y ago
        So far we learned that the HTTP web is slow, impermanent and centralized. This is why it can support billions of people daily in every corner on the planet and have services like https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/. Time to move on I guess. I wonder why do we need an http to IPFS gateway for that video he just uploaded though.
      - foxhop 9y ago
        Each time the page is updated, the TXT record would need to be modified with the latest IPNS hash?
foxhop 9y ago
I'm brand new to the IPFS concept, this looks really cool! I was surprised to see that the page served via IPFS supports HTTPS, do you happen to know how the secret key is securely shared among nodes in the decentralized environment?
- fyi1183 9y ago
  The HTTPS is served by the proxy, it has nothing to do with IPFS.
- paulogr 9y ago
  The https version is served thru a proxy. This is the way you can get your status page visible to the HTTP world. The gotcha is that anyone on the IPFS network could have a copy of your page and serve them in your behalf.
  - edraferi 9y ago
    > anyone on the IPFS network could have a copy of your page Yes, but critically they can't modify it thanks to content addressing [0]. > and serve them in your behalf. Yes, over IPFS. So anyone with an IPFS client will have a robust way to view your status page. If people want to view it via HTTPS, they hit ipfs.io, which is an IPFS/HTTP gateway. While it's possible for other people to run gateways, I believe ipfs.io is the main one. It could theoretically be a bottleneck. [0] https://dweb-primer.ipfs.io/avenues-for-access/lessons/power-of-content-addressing.html https://dweb-primer.ipfs.io/avenues-for-access/lessons/power...
travelton 9y ago
If I understand correctly, you still need a gateway VPS to proxy the ipfs site out to the internet over http. Isn't this a single point of failure, as your gateway server will be pegged. Or am I misunderstanding the implementation? You could have a VPS in multiple regions, but we're back at square one.
- dna_polymerase 9y ago
  I think you can run IPFS locally and access the IPFS network without a gateway this way.
  - Kudos 9y ago
    Sounds like IPFS needs more ubiquity before this is something you can rely on. I know IPFS support is coming to Firefox soon, but I suspect it's much further off for other browsers.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      "IPFS support is coming to Firefox soon" Not exactly, as far as I understand it; you still need to manually install an addon, it's just that the addon can now handle ipfs:// links when you click on them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243530
      - diggan 9y ago
        That's entirely correct. Before it had to be prefixed with `web+` and now just `ipfs://` will work. For the extension, the IPFS community have been developing one which will use this new feature: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion PR for tracking the protocol handler is here: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/359 https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/359 Disclaimer: I work for Protocol Labs on IPFS
- sudhirj 9y ago
  Anybody can gateway the entire IPFS network, so not really. The officially maintained gateway is just one gateway. If you don’t want to rely on it, can run your own.
book_mentioned 9y ago
Competing on price is a mistake for enterprise customers, they want to pay more. Saying this option is cheaper counts against it. Make it as reliable as IPFS claims it can be (this has to work in the real world!), and as easy to use as a Twitter account, then market that combo. Look at the competition for pricing ideas, and charge more since your offering delivers.
KirinDave 9y ago
Why is this desirable? IPFS nodes don't really rehost content for any substantial period of time (especially the gateway) so you're still stuck with some major problems: 1. You're still hosting off your IPFS node. This isn't worse, but it isn't better. You need to have a node and it needs to have connectivity. 2. IPNS resolution is glacial and it's a known issue without resolution currently. So any gateway trying to resolve your current version of the IPFS-hosted status page through a gateway using IPNS can often end up waiting seconds (sometimes even tens of seconds) for name resolution, giving the impression of a downed status page. Sadly, IPFS is more of a decentralized presentation and perhaps caching framework. It doesn't really achieve the goal of decentralized storage until there is some reliable way to persist the data on the network beyond immediate use. Pinning services exist, but most seem quite expensive to me.
- prophesi 9y ago
  1. They're hoping that FileCoin will resolve that issue. Akin to Storj and Siacoin, people will offer to host (aka pin) content on their IPFS gateway node in return for FileCoins, and the market will decide the price. 2. In the meantime, you can set up a script to update your DNS TXT record to point to the most recent IPFS hash. I've got a static site generator that does this upon the completion of a build.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    It's really too bad that anyone still thinks FileCoin is not a deeply flawed (if not outright scammy) endeavor. The only reason it isn't more widely decried is that the IPFS folks have a lot of goodwill in the community. But it's a bad coin. As for your #2, I don't use this solution because of propagation times. Instead, I use an nginx proxy that rewrites incoming requests on a specific path to root on IPFS node. When I rebuild, I rebuild that site config there. But tbh, I'm going to undo that. I get absolutely nothing for being part of IPFS and there's effectively no reason to host content there. It's a DHT and while that's cool, it's actually substantially less efficient than alternatives. I've been enthusiastic about IPFS because it's a neat white paper, but after using it for months I've concluded it's a tech demo with no real direction to go other than a deeply flawed cryptocurrency.

heavenlyblue 9y ago

So how do I (perma-)link the user to the latest status page?

paulogr 9y ago
IPFS has a so called IPNS system that use mutable hashes. So when you publish using this piece of software you got always a permanent link to share with your users.
- foxhop 9y ago
  What if I wanted to always link to the latest, like from my normal HTTPS powered web site? Is there a way to link to the head so that it always references the latest version?
  - mstade 9y ago
    I believe that's what the previous poster means, you get a namespace that points to the canonical version of your resource, whatever that may be. Kind of like how HEAD is an alias for the latest SHA on a branch in git. But I don't know, this is just how I understood the previous comment.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    The latest would be a link like /ipns/yourcompany.com, and you'd have a TXT record pointing at your node's IPNS hash (or an IPFS content hash directly) and you update it by either updating what your node's IPNS hash points to, or by editing the DNS record to point to the latest IPFS content hash.
    - foxhop 9y ago
      Now I'm even more confused. I suppose I'll watch a talk on youtube or something. Edit: currently watching this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2rHlbB5i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2rHlbB5i0 (10 minutes)
      - StreamBright 9y ago
        So far we learned that the HTTP web is slow, impermanent and centralized. This is why it can support billions of people daily in every corner on the planet and have services like https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/. Time to move on I guess. I wonder why do we need an http to IPFS gateway for that video he just uploaded though.
    - foxhop 9y ago
      Each time the page is updated, the TXT record would need to be modified with the latest IPNS hash?

foxhop 9y ago

I'm brand new to the IPFS concept, this looks really cool! I was surprised to see that the page served via IPFS supports HTTPS, do you happen to know how the secret key is securely shared among nodes in the decentralized environment?

fyi1183 9y ago
The HTTPS is served by the proxy, it has nothing to do with IPFS.
paulogr 9y ago
The https version is served thru a proxy. This is the way you can get your status page visible to the HTTP world. The gotcha is that anyone on the IPFS network could have a copy of your page and serve them in your behalf.
- edraferi 9y ago
  > anyone on the IPFS network could have a copy of your page Yes, but critically they can't modify it thanks to content addressing [0]. > and serve them in your behalf. Yes, over IPFS. So anyone with an IPFS client will have a robust way to view your status page. If people want to view it via HTTPS, they hit ipfs.io, which is an IPFS/HTTP gateway. While it's possible for other people to run gateways, I believe ipfs.io is the main one. It could theoretically be a bottleneck. [0] https://dweb-primer.ipfs.io/avenues-for-access/lessons/power-of-content-addressing.html https://dweb-primer.ipfs.io/avenues-for-access/lessons/power...

travelton 9y ago

If I understand correctly, you still need a gateway VPS to proxy the ipfs site out to the internet over http. Isn't this a single point of failure, as your gateway server will be pegged. Or am I misunderstanding the implementation? You could have a VPS in multiple regions, but we're back at square one.

dna_polymerase 9y ago
I think you can run IPFS locally and access the IPFS network without a gateway this way.
- Kudos 9y ago
  Sounds like IPFS needs more ubiquity before this is something you can rely on. I know IPFS support is coming to Firefox soon, but I suspect it's much further off for other browsers.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    "IPFS support is coming to Firefox soon" Not exactly, as far as I understand it; you still need to manually install an addon, it's just that the addon can now handle ipfs:// links when you click on them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243530
    - diggan 9y ago
      That's entirely correct. Before it had to be prefixed with `web+` and now just `ipfs://` will work. For the extension, the IPFS community have been developing one which will use this new feature: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion PR for tracking the protocol handler is here: https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/359 https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/pull/359 Disclaimer: I work for Protocol Labs on IPFS
sudhirj 9y ago
Anybody can gateway the entire IPFS network, so not really. The officially maintained gateway is just one gateway. If you don’t want to rely on it, can run your own.

book_mentioned 9y ago

Competing on price is a mistake for enterprise customers, they want to pay more. Saying this option is cheaper counts against it. Make it as reliable as IPFS claims it can be (this has to work in the real world!), and as easy to use as a Twitter account, then market that combo. Look at the competition for pricing ideas, and charge more since your offering delivers.

KirinDave 9y ago

Why is this desirable? IPFS nodes don't really rehost content for any substantial period of time (especially the gateway) so you're still stuck with some major problems: 1. You're still hosting off your IPFS node. This isn't worse, but it isn't better. You need to have a node and it needs to have connectivity. 2. IPNS resolution is glacial and it's a known issue without resolution currently. So any gateway trying to resolve your current version of the IPFS-hosted status page through a gateway using IPNS can often end up waiting seconds (sometimes even tens of seconds) for name resolution, giving the impression of a downed status page. Sadly, IPFS is more of a decentralized presentation and perhaps caching framework. It doesn't really achieve the goal of decentralized storage until there is some reliable way to persist the data on the network beyond immediate use. Pinning services exist, but most seem quite expensive to me.

prophesi 9y ago
1. They're hoping that FileCoin will resolve that issue. Akin to Storj and Siacoin, people will offer to host (aka pin) content on their IPFS gateway node in return for FileCoins, and the market will decide the price. 2. In the meantime, you can set up a script to update your DNS TXT record to point to the most recent IPFS hash. I've got a static site generator that does this upon the completion of a build.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  It's really too bad that anyone still thinks FileCoin is not a deeply flawed (if not outright scammy) endeavor. The only reason it isn't more widely decried is that the IPFS folks have a lot of goodwill in the community. But it's a bad coin. As for your #2, I don't use this solution because of propagation times. Instead, I use an nginx proxy that rewrites incoming requests on a specific path to root on IPFS node. When I rebuild, I rebuild that site config there. But tbh, I'm going to undo that. I get absolutely nothing for being part of IPFS and there's effectively no reason to host content there. It's a DHT and while that's cool, it's actually substantially less efficient than alternatives. I've been enthusiastic about IPFS because it's a neat white paper, but after using it for months I've concluded it's a tech demo with no real direction to go other than a deeply flawed cryptocurrency.