init system integration

go-ipfs can be started by your operating system's native init system.

• systemd
• LSB init script
• Upstart/startup job
• launchd

systemd

For systemd, the best approach is to run the daemon in a user session. Here is a sample service file:

[Unit]
Description=IPFS daemon

[Service]
# Environment="IPFS_PATH=/data/ipfs"  # optional path to ipfs init directory if not default ($HOME/.ipfs)
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ipfs daemon
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

To run this in your user session, save it as ~/.config/systemd/user/ipfs.service (creating directories as necessary). Once you run ipfs init to create your IPFS settings, you can control the daemon using the following commands:

• systemctl --user start ipfs - start the daemon
• systemctl --user stop ipfs - stop the daemon
• systemctl --user status ipfs - get status of the daemon
• systemctl --user enable ipfs - enable starting the daemon at boot
• systemctl --user disable ipfs - disable starting the daemon at boot

Note: If you want this --user service to run at system boot, you must enable-linger on the account that runs the service:

# loginctl enable-linger [user]

Read more about --user services here: wiki.archlinux.org:Systemd

initd

• Here is a full-featured sample service file: https://github.com/dylanPowers/ipfs-linux-service/blob/master/init.d/ipfs
• Use service or your distribution's equivalent to control the service.

upstart

• And below is a very basic sample upstart job. Note the username jbenet.

cat /etc/init/ipfs.conf

description "ipfs: interplanetary filesystem"

start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE!=lo)
stop on runlevel [!2345]

limit nofile 524288 1048576
limit nproc 524288 1048576
setuid jbenet
chdir /home/jbenet
respawn
exec ipfs daemon

Another version is available here:

ipfs cat /ipfs/QmbYCwVeA23vz6mzAiVQhJNa2JSiRH4ebef1v2e5EkDEZS/ipfs.conf >/etc/init/ipfs.conf

For both, edit to replace occurrences of jbenet with whatever user you want it to run as:

sed -i s/jbenet/<chosen-username>/ /etc/init/ipfs.conf

Once you run ipfs init to create your IPFS settings, you can control the daemon using the init.d commands:

sudo service ipfs start
sudo service ipfs stop
sudo service ipfs restart
...

launchd

Similar to systemd, on macOS you can run go-ipfs via a user LaunchAgent.

• Create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.ipfs.go-ipfs.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>io.ipfs.go-ipfs</string>
        <key>ProcessType</key>
        <string>Background</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/bin/sh</string>
                <string>-c</string>
                <string>~/go/bin/ipfs daemon</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

The reason for running ipfs under a shell is to avoid needing to hard-code the user's home directory in the job.

• To start the job, run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/io.ipfs.go-ipfs.plist

Notes:

• To check that the job is running, run launchctl list | grep ipfs.
• IPFS should now start whenever you log in (and exit when you log out).
• LaunchControl is a GUI tool which simplifies management of LaunchAgents.