Improve Public Gateway Checker

[olizilla]

We have a site to check a list of known IPFS gateways

https://ipfs.github.io/public-gateway-checker/

Let's upgrade it

• [ ] Make the UI consistent with our other websites (use ipfs-css & tachyons, see https://dag.ipfs.io or https://explore.ipld.io) - @juliaxbow is working on this now (2022 OCT)
• [x] Host it so that it is available even if the https://ipfs.io gateway is unstable - DONE. It's on github pages now
• [ ] Allow folks to submit new gateways via a PR in Github, including gateway url, Contact email, Developer or Company name and logo - to celebrate those offering public infrastructure) - There is some opportunity here to display/get more information about gateway providers. This has not been pursued that I am aware of, but we should have more information to go on after @juliaxbow's user research
• [ ] Clearly Link to it or incorporate the information into the main https://ipfs.io website along with links to information about how to run your own. - This may or may not be done but we should do an audit.
• [x] https://github.com/ipfs/public-gateway-checker/issues/306

Nice to have

• [ ] Create a map visualization of where are all the IPFS Gateways in the World.

Future work

• [ ] Let gateway maintainers provide access to their gateway metrics from go-ipfs, so we can show the uptime, data passed, number of files requests on each gateway on the checker. -- This would be fantastic.

[alanshaw]

Things I'd also like to know status of:

• Preload nodes
• Public WebRTC and Websocket star rendezvous servers

[fsdiogo]

I had no idea this site existed, this is handy!

Just for fun I ported it to React, used ipfs-css, tachyons and made it look along the lines of the sites @olizilla mentioned.

I was thinking of opening a PR in the current repo when this is done, but as it's a whole new thing from the ground up it would be easier to just create a new repo. Thoughts?

EDIT: WIP code is living in https://github.com/fsdiogo/ipfs-infra-status just to safeguard in case my 💻 lights on 🔥.

[fsdiogo]

I'd like some ideas to upgrade the design, specially to add the features @alanshaw mentioned: tabs? A menu with links to other pages similar to this one?

[olizilla]

nice! I did something similar in a spare moment at IPFS camp, but I didn't do a full re-write, so I'm glad you did @fsdiogo! I truncated the gateway text to just show the domain to reduce the amount of duplicated data:

[fsdiogo]

Wow, great minds think alike 😄

I like yours better, so I'm going to steal it 👼

[autonome]

I was thinking of opening a PR in the current repo when this is done, but as it's a whole new thing from the ground up it would be easier to just create a new repo. Thoughts?

The current maintainer, Jamie IIRC, was very responsive when I submitted a PR there. Maybe open an issue there, pointing to this one, asking if he's ok with the upgrade?

[fsdiogo]

Added badge to display the checked gateways (thanks for the idea @olizilla) and how many are online:

See it live on ipfs-infra-status.surge.sh.

[andrasfuchs]

Nice work guys!

Could you make the table even more like IPLD Explorer's design? ;)

Also, ipfs.io has this beautiful tick and cross on the main page:

https://ipfs.io/images/ipfs-illustration-network.svg

Could you use them?

[andrasfuchs]

Feature-wise I think it would be also good to see:

• The IPFS version number
• Writable status (as discussed here: https://github.com/ipfs/public-gateway-checker/issues/3)
• If there is IPNS support on the node (some gateways just return internal server error when we try to open an IPNS hash)
• Average IPFS and IPNS lookup times in the last few minutes (this could help with the load balancing on the gateways around the world)
• Error code, last updated columns (as implemented here: https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXHzertynCrRi9A99JH1fbxLATtGCaU4L3gkLo6ov9JEW/)

[olizilla]

@andrasfuchs these are all good ideas! Would you be interested in PRing some of them to https://github.com/fsdiogo/ipfs-infra-status ?

[andrasfuchs]

@olizilla I would be glad, I'm just not sure if my skillset is the best fit. (I'm more of a C#/.NET Core guy.) I will definitely check out the repo and try my best to make some changes ;)

[andrasfuchs]

I spent a few hours with Visual Studio Code, Node.js and React, but I keep hitting walls. That's the first time I used Node.js, so obviously I'm a newbie. I really would like to help, so could someone here help me out so that I can implement at least a few of my suggestions?

[fsdiogo]

Hey @andrasfuchs, we're here to help!

Maybe open a draft PR with what you have and we can discuss that there?

[andrasfuchs]

Alright, I created a new PR: https://github.com/fsdiogo/ipfs-infra-status/pull/1 It's not much, but hopefully I will get more productive as I learn more about Node.js and React.

[andrasfuchs]

Hey guys, I updated the design of the table. It's not in the first PR, I created a separate branch for it, but if you accept the first, I'll create a new one with these changes, if that's ok with you.

I tried to match IPLD Explorer's design, it's not perfect, but similar enough I think.

[lazyweirdo]

@olizilla

Create a map visualization of where are all the IPFS Gateways in the World.

I have something working locally, it looks like this http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmQ57dEUq8FbKq5F9Rw3pkUivcVy8cUj9UGKb1KVBwsnG8?filename=gatewaysmap.jpg It makes use of http://ip-api.com which is free for non comercial use. I thought it would be nice to have this feature dynamic rather than static since it is domain based Should i continue ?

[jessicaschilling]

@olizilla Just checking in on this one when you get the chance. Thanks!

[jessicaschilling]

Note from https://github.com/ipfs/public-gateway-checker/pull/117#discussion_r509588507 for when this issue is revived, per @lidel:

indeed: entire app.js needs to be re-written from scratch in modern JS (painfully needs rate-limiting via execution queues, similar to ones we have in js-libp2p-delegated-*)

[SgtPooki]

@juliaxbow this could really use your input. All of the previous discussion here is great.. but it's all extremely outdated: https://ipfs.github.io/public-gateway-checker/ for the current UI

[juliaxbow]

@SgtPooki this is still very simple but some initial suggestions included below based on some feedback from users. Let me know your feedback so I can iterate! Dark mode optional

[juliaxbow]

@SgtPooki Also:

Flashier (no content changes from previously shared table)

and

Bare bones (limited visual changes from current site but includes all of the table changes above)

[SgtPooki]

that looks so good =D

[whizzzkid]

@juliaxbow this looks great, with the new tests added:

• IPNS: #313
• Block/CAR: #310 #312

Should these designs also accommodate for filtering results? right now the design allows for sorting through the contents by column, but say I only want to see the results that PASS all the tests, sorted by delta-T.

[juliaxbow]

@whizzzkid I'm chatting with (and actively recruiting) users to get feedback on what to include in the table. This design was made before that research began. Once I get some more feedback and consolidate my findings I'll refresh the design proposal.

Good call-out re: filtering results. Will explore this more!