Protocol Labs - Retriev

Retriev is a Protocol designed by CryptoNetLab and developed by YOMI that allows end users to create retrieval deals with a subset of IPFS providers. It leverages a reliable system of “missed retrieval” penalties that increases the confidence in decentralized storage networks.

If you want to go deeper on how the protocol works please read our light paper.

Active deployments

v0.0.1 - Current release available at retriev.org

Deployment on Polygon mainnet:

• Main contract is deployed at 0xc8834A8b64ad66668B11240Dc12B3EE32bA02c5B.

Deployment on Ethereum testnet (Goerli):

• Main contract is deployed at 0x7Aa765411207De8614C5044D25c58148F017DD80.

This release can be found at retriev.org.

v0.1.0 - Active development release

Deployment on Ethereum testnet (Goerli):

• Main contract is deployed at 0x31FEbE602b8088bB96cfbb5Ba44A9b62B3b9845d.

• Public appeal contract is deployed at 0x21d3F2649Dc6D37373C34aB89b34209C63b8020e.

This release can be found at dev.retriev.org.

Architecture

The protocol consists of three main elements:

• Smart Contract: which is the core of the procotol, where the rules are written and from where you can create deals or create appeals.
• Referee network: which is the guarantee that the protocol is respected and from where appeal requests are processed.
• Provider network: which is the network of providers, where all data are stored and from where data should be retrieved.

Of course the end users (who wants to store data and make deals) can interact directly with the protocol using the blockchain, however we created a simple interface to make deals.

This is an extended diagram which explains current architecture:

Technologies used

We used a bunch of different technologies to create the protocol:

• Smart Contract: we used Solidity to create the contract, so it will run on any EVM chain.
• Provider / Referee network: is a NodeJS application that uses socket.io to establish a communication between peers. Final application is compiled using pkg.
• Client UI / Website: both are static websites created with VueJS, deployment is done also using IPFS.
• Client CLI: is a NodeJS application compiled using pkg.
• API: is a NodeJS application built with Express.
• Status daemon: is a Rust application.

Project directories

Project is divided by subfolders, any folder contains a different piece of the protocol:

• shared: which contains a shared library to bootstrap nodes, dial with web3 and communicate between peers.
• smart-contracts: which contains smart contracts folders, each folder contains a single contract.
• clients-cli: which contains a basic CLI to interact with contract, create deals and appeals.
• provider-cli: which contains provider logic to accept deals published on-chain and serve deal files.
• referee-cli: which contains referee logic to ask providers if some clients asks for a retrieval.
• stress-cli: which contains a tool to test the network over time.
• status-daemon: which contains the Rust tool that aggregates stats.
• docker: which contains the Docker image and the scripts to build / run the node.
• api: which contains a NodeJS application that parses the blockchain and serves informations instantly.
• ui: which contains a Frontend application and website deployed at retriev.org.

How to install nodes

Installing a node is required only if you want to be part of the referee consortium or you want to be a provider. There are very few requirements to run the node, it depends if you want to run it using Docker or you want to build from source using NodeJS.

Since we're using blockchain you need a web3 provider, in our case we need a Goerli or Polygon provider and we suggest to signup for a free account at Infura. Please be sure to have your API_KEY (it will be provided by Infura's interface) before can continue following this guide.

Install Node using Docker

To use docker follow these simple follow steps:

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/protocol/retrieval-pinning

# Run first building script
bash docker/scripts/build.sh API_KEY

# Run a node as referee
bash docker/scripts/start.sh referee

# Run a node as provider
bash docker/scripts/start.sh provider

# Stop node
bash docker/scripts/stop.sh

Clients CLI

If you're looking for specific documentation to interact with protocol as a client please go here.

Providers CLI

If you're looking for specific documentation to interact with protocol as a provider please go here.

Smart contract docs

If you're looking for specific documentation for the smart contract please go here.

Support

If you need support please feel free to jump into our Slack channel and ask for it.