BlogChain

A decentralized blockchain based blog using Ethereum Smart Contract and Web3.

Description

A decentralized blockchain based blog using Ethereum Smart Contract and Web3. It uses the Truffle Framework for developing smart contracts and Bootstrap for a website. It uses IPFS for web hosting.

Features

• Decentralized
• Can be used with any Ethereum network
• Uses IPFS for website hosting
• Small file size
• more features coming ...

TODO

• Deleting and editing posts
• Deleting and transfering a blog
• Translations
• Better tests
• Better code documentation
• JavaScript API

How It Works

TODO

Usage

You can run BlogChain locally, or publish it to the IPFS or another hosting.

Requirements

You must have Node.js and NPM installed. You also need to install Truffle Framework. You must be connected to the Ethereum blockchain to use the tests. I suggest you use Ganache, which creates a personal Ethereum blockchain. For web hosting, you can use IPFS.

Installation

You can install BlogChain from the GitHub repository using git, or download it from the GitHub releases. Then you need to download all additional NPM packages. BlogChain is currently using lite-server for a local web development server.

git clone https://github.com/filips123/BlogChain.git
cd BlogChain
npm install

Running

If you want to compile smart contracts, execute the following commands:

truffle compile

Compiled smart contracts will be in the build/contracts folder.

If you want to test BlogChain, execute the following commands:

truffle test
# or
npm test

You must be connected to the Ethereum blockchain for that. I suggest you use Ganache.

To use the lite-server for a local web development server, execute the following commands:

npm run dev

This will compile smart contracts and run a local web server on port 3000.

Publishing to IPFS

You can publish BlogChain website to the IPFS. You need to install it and add it to the path variable. Instructions are for IPFS added in path variable. If you don't have IPFS added in path variable, you will need to modify commands.

To do this, you need to copy the compiled BlogChain smart contract (build/contracts/BlogChain.json) and the webpage (src) into the same folder. You need to do this manually right now.

Then follow the instructions in the Medium article The ultimate end-to-end tutorial to create and deploy a fully decentralized Dapp in ethereum (don't forget to change folder name). Bellow is their summary.

Execute the following commands:

ipfs daemon

This will create a node. In another command line or terminal do:

ipfs swarm peers

This will get you peers that will share your content. Then run:

ipfs add -r path/to/website/and/compiled/contract/directory/

This will add your folder to the network. You’ll see a long hash that’s been generated for you. The last hash is a unique identifier for that folder:

added QmcCZLY7ubZ7pb5hkwSMzazNGkrJpfsHidiEwAi9ep9s7b website/css
added QmPboMFyB7p1rsjcEA8W9TfcQfkUeBhubZQDYPUVtnmXWF website/icons
added QmQGMa9EFZZ29qoL8SnaFcFmY32QKHC7GixxaEyw63aKHv website/js
added Qma1PfCMzemunU9wCTZHCMo6BfgGbMZ1Q3gXpaZTa6uY64 website

Copy that last hash (for example Qmc73ZkESUP9sZyU4zGgDMQajfNVLqqKdxPut9GmvStjtJ) and execute:

ipfs name publish your-last-hash

You’ll get something like this:

Published to Qmc2LMjSaXPFRvPJCCb4EfctYNLsKE1WTJC7BMxLrN9fmD: /ipfs/Qmc73ZkESUP9sZyU4zGgDMQajfNVLqqKdxPut9GmvStjtJ

That means that your website is available on the URL from the first hash (for example Qmc2LMjSaXPFRvPJCCb4EfctYNLsKE1WTJC7BMxLrN9fmD. You can check it by going to https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipns/<your-hash-here>. In my case this is:

https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipns/Qmc2LMjSaXPFRvPJCCb4EfctYNLsKE1WTJC7BMxLrN9fmD

If you update BlogChain contract or website files, you can simply run:

ipfs add -r path/to/website/and/compiled/contract/directory/
ipfs name publish your-last-hash

The publish name hash will always be the same.

Configuration

You can configure Truffle in file truffle-config.js. For more details about configuring Truffle see Truffle Documentation.

More options are comming ...

Built With

• Ethereum
• Truffle Framework
• Web3
• Bootstrap
• IPFS

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Versioning

This project uses SemVer SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3. See the LICENSE file for details.