IPFS Pinning - Concepts

InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)

IPFS is a peer-to-peer protocol, made by Protocol Labs, for decentralized storage and content sharing.

Peer-to-peer (P2P)

Architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged participants in the network. They form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.

Content-based addressing

Data over IPFS is identified by its content, not by its location (like HTTP does), providing a new way to access data through a unique content identifier (CID). Consequently, data is immutable and verifiable, allowing any device to be involved in the network, enhancing the redundancy.

Content Identifier (CID)

The content identifier is a string of characters that points to a content. The content can be available on the network, or not. The CID is composed of the cryptographic hash of the content. It is used to identify and fetch the content through the network.

Pin

A pin is a content that remains available in the IPFS network until it is unpinned.

Volume

A volume is an abstract storage area that can hold a set of pins, which can be done via URLs or CID.