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IPFS has a name resolution protocol, called IPNS. Conceptually it works similar to DNS. More advanced discovery protocols are being worked. The thing with IPFS

IPFS has a name resolution protocol, called IPNS. Conceptually it works similar to DNS. More advanced discovery protocols are being worked. The thing with IPFS though is that, because the raw identifier (not address) is the hash of the content, multiple nodes can serve the same content. A key idea to to focus on de-centralization, so for example when you want a particular piece of content you could send a query out asking your known nodes for content with that hash, they then ask others, etc., propagating the request like gossip. Caching can make this more efficient. IPNS allows you to register your node as a provider of named content that has a given name. The biggest benefits of this are (1) that you can update the content (giving it a new hash) and people can still find it by name, and (2) most mere mortals can't remember hashes but names are much easier to remember. A good introduction to IPFS can be found on HackerNoon, at https://hackernoon.com/a-beginners-guide-to-ipfs-20673fedd3f https://hackernoon.com/a-beginners-guide-to-ipfs-20673fedd3f. A good library to start with is Libp2p, https://github.com/libp2p https://github.com/libp2p

marknadal 8y ago
IPNS is a poor answer/solution to the original comment. Don't get me wrong, I love IPFS (it is a perfect match with our tech) but IPNS is a nice sounding solution to the problem, but suffers terrible performance problems from the IPFS requirement of hashing. Unfortunately, I know this for fact because multiple companies have already moved from IPNS to us to handle the indexing/updating of decentralized data in a mutable context BUT they still use IPFS for files/photos/etc. So IPFS is great, but you are better off using another system for naming, indexing, searching, etc. and then point to the IPFS hashes. I'm biased (D.Tube - couple million+ monthly visitors, P2P reddit http://notabug.io http://notabug.io - thousand daily actives, Internet Archive, etc.) are using GUN (https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun) for this instead.
- lgierth 8y ago
  > suffers terrible performance problems from the IPFS requirement of hashing Could you be more specific? We're aware of a good bunch of reasons for IPNS's varying performance, but hashing isn't one of them.

marknadal 8y ago

IPNS is a poor answer/solution to the original comment. Don't get me wrong, I love IPFS (it is a perfect match with our tech) but IPNS is a nice sounding solution to the problem, but suffers terrible performance problems from the IPFS requirement of hashing. Unfortunately, I know this for fact because multiple companies have already moved from IPNS to us to handle the indexing/updating of decentralized data in a mutable context BUT they still use IPFS for files/photos/etc. So IPFS is great, but you are better off using another system for naming, indexing, searching, etc. and then point to the IPFS hashes. I'm biased (D.Tube - couple million+ monthly visitors, P2P reddit http://notabug.io http://notabug.io - thousand daily actives, Internet Archive, etc.) are using GUN (https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun) for this instead.

lgierth 8y ago
> suffers terrible performance problems from the IPFS requirement of hashing Could you be more specific? We're aware of a good bunch of reasons for IPNS's varying performance, but hashing isn't one of them.