Js-ipfs: JS-IPFS now incompatible with https://ipfs.io gateway

[rodkeys]

Version: 0.29.1
Platform: 64-bit (Windows)
Subsystem: XXX

Type: Bug

Severity: High

Description: A few weeks ago I was able to successfully add files from JS-IPFS and access them from public gateways such as ipfs.io. I am no longer able to have my files found from any of the public gateways. I am connected to approximately 100 peers on average. I have tested this issue on multiple VPS's in different locations.

Steps to reproduce the error: Add a unique file and try to access its hash through the ipfs.io gateway. My node initialization code is listed below.

const IPFS = require('ipfs');
node = new IPFS({
  config: {
    EXPERIMENTAL: {
      pubsub: true
    },
    repo: 'ipfs-' + Math.random(),
    Addresses: {
      Swarm: [
        '/dns4/ws-star.discovery.libp2p.io/tcp/443/wss/p2p-websocket-star'
      ]
    }
  }
});

[daviddias]

Hi @rodkeys. There has been a needed infrastructure change on the IPFS Gateways. This change means that a js-ipfs node doesn't connect to the Gateway nodes anymore.

Once https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/pull/856 and/or https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p/issues/120 + go-ipfs 0.4.15 is released, you will be able to access files from the ipfs.io gateways again.

[daviddias]

More context given @alanshaw's ping on IRC:

10:29 <alanshaw> daviddias: can you fill me in on what happened here: https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/issues/1380 ?
10:34 <@daviddias> alanshaw the Summary is that the ipfs.io Gateways changed its setup to use Anycast
10:34 <@daviddias> And so, when you ping ipfs.io, you now get routed around the world to the best gateway to attend
10:35 <@daviddias> This gives the infrateam a way to scale up and down the number of gateways
10:35 <@daviddias> what it also means is that we don't know how many are there and so the js-ipfs node doesn't know who to connect
10:35 <@daviddias> A potential patch is to just let DNS tell us how many there are at any given moment -- https://github.com/ipfs/infrastructure/issues/410 -- so that we can connect
10:36 <@daviddias> but ideally what we should is have DHT + Circuit Relay finalized

[mitra42]

It looks like this is blocking the opposite as well - could this be causing the problem where files added on the go nodes are no longer retrievable from the js-ipfs. Since we've seen other bugs with that route I'm not sure its this Issue causing what appears to be files not being found.

[parkan]

I think we can work around this by directly dialing a wss go-ipfs node from js in the meanwhile, does that make sense @diasdavid? (for demo purposes, aware that this would be fragile)

[daviddias]

Indeed we can as long as those Infra nodes are easy to find -- https://github.com/ipfs/infrastructure/issues/410 -- and they are listening on websocket secure multiaddrs.

[daviddias]

It's compatible again with https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/issues/1458, try it out and let us know how it goes :)

[buzz]

Confirming it works! Yeah! :+1: