IPFS has features that go well with serving videos across networks.
With the IPFS network mounted to a local machine Jellyfin & Plex are capable of having cached video libraries.
Devices with limited storage can have access to a huge on-demand library. Say a Raspberry Pi at an office, relative's home, etc.
IPFS by itself can easily turn into a confusing maze.
Media Organizers like Jellyfin & Plex seem like a natural fit to this maze.
'Server' nodes with a large amount of storage can create IPNS keys for collections of files. They can 'publish' updates to this address as they add/remove content.
'Client' nodes then resolve this IPNS address to get updates.
All nodes can be clients & servers. Anything cached to a 'client' node acts as +1 source for the network.
Adds videos using the IPFS 'filestore' (to not use extra space) to IPFS & the IPFS MFS filesystem under '/movies/'
You need to have created a /movies/ directory with a command like ipfs files mkdir /movies/
Currently, only adds the main video, no subs or other files. Only grabs mp4 & mkv files.
Run in the directory you have a bunch of mp4 & mkv files.
It keeps a file list at ${confdir}/ipfsflix-filesystem.list.
Adds a single file/directory to ipfsflix. Ignores any *.txt, *.nfo, *.rar, *.exe files if it's a directory being added.
Prompts for IPFS_PATH to use.
Prompts for IPFS MFS location to save. (currently one level)
It keeps a file list at ${confdir}/ipfsflix-filesystem.list.
There aren't that many direct links to videos hanging around anymore, but if you find some you can add them to IPFSFLix.
The script prompts the user to name the directory to place the file in, since it could be nonsensical to pull text from the URL.
Then the script prompts for the IPFS_PATH and IPFS MFS directory to save it within.
IPFS will download the URL and if successful add it to the IPFS MFS.
This does not save the video to the server.
When the file is called over the network the host machine will re-download the file to serve the blocks on IPFS.
Uses a text file such as the ipfsflix-namemap.list.sample to create symlinks in a specified directory. This resolves the IPNS address to an IPFS address to prevent the directory from hanging when IPNS is unresovlable.
Sometimes the IPFS MFS seems to lose track of things. I'll have files that go missing.
ipfsflix-mfs-remap.bash goes through the ipfsflix-filesystem.list to 'remap' anything that wasn't in the MFS.
Publishes your IPFS MFS directories to their corresponding keys. Publishing 'movies' with the 'movies' key, 'series' with the 'series' key, for example, etc.
Searches the ipfs-filesystem.list file to prompt for the deletion of files from the IPFS MFS, the IPFS pin, and then finally the ipfs-filesystem.list itself.
A text file that stores the IPNS addresses to resolve to symlinks.
- Relative Path to IPFS/IPNS Mounts - Used to tell the script where the mounted IPFS/IPNS endpoints will be located. Useful if you have multiple IPFS mountpoints, perhaps the main swarm and a private swarm. Something like
../../..if the /ipfs/ mount is three directories above the symlink directory. - Symlink name - The name you want to give the symlink directory.
- IPNS address - The IPNS address that will be resolved for that symlink.
- IPFS_PATH - The IPFS_PATH needed to access the right IPFS daemon. Most people would use
~/.ipfs/for the default public swarm.
Uses '::' separators.
Example to a small public domain sample of videos,
../../..::ipfs-public-domain::/ipns/k51qzi5uqu5dm003wyasjdmljt5ekqos1ptq73n2l2zplvv9672jqkftlqyica::~/.ipfs/
Goes in the confdir configuration directory set in ~/.config/ipfsflix.conf.
A list of your IPFS_PATHs. Most people probably have the main swarm at ~/.ipfs. If you have private swarm node locations add them here as well.
Goes in the confdir configuration directory set in ~/.config/ipfsflix.conf.
The scripts that add files should add to this file in the confdir configuration directory.
ipfsflix-rm-file.bash removes lines from this file when files are unpinned and removed from the IPFS MFS.
Goes in the confdir configuration directory set in ~/.config/ipfsflix.conf.
- Add media to IPFS using the IPFS 'filestore.'
- Create an IPNS directory that virtually holds that media.
- Share this IPNS address with other devices.
- Other devices symlink the IPNS address to the IPFS 'mount' locations.
- Jellyfin & Plex add those symlinked directories to their Libraries.
- Use Jellyfin & Plex as normal.
- Use a Private Swarm if you want privacy.
There's probably lots of bugs.
I don't guarantee that anything here works at any given point.