Blockchain By Example

Using IPNS

Whenever we need to update any of our ICO frontend files, the associated IPFS file hashes will change, meaning that the IPFS path that we first generated for our project will no longer equate to the most recent version of the files. This will cause the public URL to change whenever file changes are made.

To solve this problem, we can use IPNS (short for InterPlanetary Naming System), which allows us to publish a link that won't change when the underlying files are changed.

Let's publish the first iteration of the site to IPNS, using the hash of the main directory:

ipfs name publish QmQytFqNoyk8H1ZEaHe9wkGcbcUgaRbReEzurPBYRnbjNB

After a while, this will return a hash similar to the following:

Published to QmZW1zPDKUtTbcbaXDYCD2jUodw9A2sNffJNeEy8eWK3bG: ...