# Host Your Site Under Your Domain on IPFS

This is a step-by-step tutorial for hosting your website under your domain on IPFS, from zero, on a DigitalOcean Ubuntu 16.04.3 x64 Droplet (i am using the $10 variant with 2GB RAM).

## Install IPFS

Log in as root.

First, make sure the system is up to date, and install `tar` and `wget`:

```sh
apt-get update
apt-get install tar wget
```

Get the [latest IPFS binary](https://dist.ipfs.io/go-ipfs/v0.4.13/go-ipfs_v0.4.13_linux-amd64.tar.gz) and install it:

```sh
wget https://dist.ipfs.io/go-ipfs/v0.4.13/go-ipfs_v0.4.13_linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar xfv go-ipfs_v0.4.13_linux-amd64.tar.gz
cp go-ipfs/ipfs /usr/local/bin/
```

It’s usually not a good idea to run a public-facing service as root. So create a new user account to run IPFS and switch to it:

```sh
adduser ipfs
su ipfs
```

Initialize IPFS:

```sh
ipfs init --profile=server
```

Now you could start the IPFS daemon with `ipfs daemon &`, but what you really want is that it automatically starts when the server boots.

Switch back to the `root` user:

```sh
exit
```

Allow the `ipfs` user to run long-running services by enabling user lingering for that user:

```sh
loginctl enable-linger ipfs
```

Create the file `/etc/systemd/system/ipfs.service` with this content:

```
[Unit]
Description=IPFS daemon

[Service]
User=ipfs
Group=ipfs
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ipfs daemon
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```

Enable and start the service:

```sh
systemctl enable ipfs
systemctl start ipfs
```

Now IPFS should be up and running, and start when the server boots.

You should see peers pouring in:

```sh
su ipfs
ipfs swarm peers
```

## Add your website to IPFS

Now that you have IPFS running on your server, add your website.

```sh
ipfs add -r <path>
```

This adds all contents of the folder at `<path>` to IPFS, recursively. You should see output similar to this:

```
added QmcrBxpSJ8if6Uy7yZbtyXXsPuUmvT5KKfZKQi39kVJ5aW <folder>/images/fritz.png
added QmauwH6KDTGaTeAdQJbW9wZEGczjzSu9EceeasPUXo2qz9 <folder>/index.html
added Qmd9JiiVRTyyY1Tn2CWDLrkqqKFaMiwaAvAASTE88yyXAC <folder>/images
added QmaFrmEDFJXnYJb9hCrKDGs8XVvSUALzhv297W3uP97v2Y <folder>
```

Take note of the last hash (here: `QmaFrmED...`, yours will be different).

Your website is now added to IPFS. You can view it on the `ipfs.io` gateway now: `https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmaFrmED...`. Or on your local one at `localhost:8080`. Or on any other gateway.

_Repeat this procedure every time you change content in your website._

## Set up DNS

Go to `https://cloud.digitalocean.com/networking/domains/` and add your domain. Below we assume this domain is `example.com`, just replace that with you actual domain.

Add `A` records (and `AAAA` records if you want to support IPv6) for both your main domain `example.com` and the subdomain `ipfs.example.com`. The latter will be proxied to your local IPFS gateway so that it is publicly accessible.

Also add a `TXT` record for `example.com`, with the content `dnslink=/ipfs/QmaFrmED...`.

_Update the `TXT` record every time you change content in your website._

![Digital Ocean DNS Settings](https://ipfs.wa.hle.rs/ipfs/QmPKFqVGGeuPRivgYB36N6j62SqNM1teqEYhNHALDS51Cm)

DNS records take a while to propagate, so be patient.

## Install nginx with Let's Encrypt SSL certs

Log in as `root`.

Make sure the system is up to date, and install `nginx`:

```sh
apt-get update
apt-get install nginx
```

Edit `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default`. Change its contents to this:

```
server {
    server_name example.com ipfs.example.com;
    server_tokens off;

    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    listen 443 ssl;
    listen [::]:443 ssl;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }
}
```

This will proxy all requests to `example.com` and `ipfs.example.com` to your IPFS gateway running at `localhost:8080`.

Test your configuration:

```sh
nginx -t
```

If everything is okay, reload nginx:

```sh
systemctl reload nginx
```

Install Certbot:

```sh
add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt-get update
apt-get install python-certbot-nginx
```

Run Certbot to get your SSL certificates. Certbot supports nginx, and will update your configuration file automatically.

```sh
certbot --nginx -d example.com -d ipfs.example.com
```

Certbot will ask you to choose whether HTTPS access is required or optional (select the `Secure` option).

To harden security, update Diffie-Hellman parameters:

```sh
openssl dhparam -out /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem 2048
```

Include this file somewhere in the `server` block of your nginx configuration `/etc/nginx/sites-available/default`, like this:

```
server {
    ...
    ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
    ...
}
```

Again, test your configuration:

```sh
nginx -t
```

If everything is okay, reload nginx:

```sh
systemctl reload nginx
```

Let's Encrypt certificates expire after 90 days, so you should have means in place to update them automatically. Crontabs are a good way to do that:

```sh
crontab -e
```

Add the following line to the end of the file:

```
15 3 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet
```

This will run `certbot renew --quiet` every day at 3:15am. It checks if the certificates expire soon (in 30 days or less), and if they do, renews them.

Now if you go to `https://example.com`, you should see the website you added to IPFS above.

## Periodically run IPFS garbage collector on your repo

You should also instruct your server to periodically run the IPFS garbage collector on your repo. Your IPFS daemon will collect some dust over time and you only have so much disk space available, so that sounds like a good idea.

This one should run under the ipfs user:

```sh
crontab -u ipfs -e
```

Add the following line to the end of the file:

```
0 5 * * * /usr/local/bin/ipfs repo gc -q
```

This will run `ipfs repo gc -q` every day at 5am.

## Sources

* [Run IPFS latest on a VPS](https://ipfs.io/blog/22-run-ipfs-on-a-vps/)
* [A short guide to hosting your site on ipfs](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRFTtbyEp3UaT67ByYW299Suw7HKKnWK6NJMdNFzDjYdX/websites/README.md)
* [How To Install Nginx](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-nginx-on-ubuntu-16-04)
* [How To Secure Nginx with Let's Encrypt](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-16-04)
* [How To Host Multiple Node.js Applications On a Single VPS](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-host-multiple-node-js-applications-on-a-single-vps-with-nginx-forever-and-crontab)