Carson Farmer on IPFS — The essential reading list
How IPFS works and how to build on it.

I recently traveled to #EthDenver with Carson Farmer and among many things I learned, I learned that Carson has fans. People popped by our table just to say “hi” and thank him for his blog posts on IPFS. If you are getting started with IPFS or already using it but hitting speed bumps, you should look through his work, it contains a ton of great information to help along the way. That’s why today, I’ve decided to put together the Carson Farmer anthology.
Part I — The Essentials
Enabling the distributed web
Enabling the distributed web
How content addressing and the protocols that it supports are shaping the future of the Internetmedium.com
What’s really happening when you add a file to IPFS?
What’s really happening when you add a file to IPFS?
From raw data to Merkle DAGs and a few steps in betweenmedium.com
How IPFS peer nodes identify each other on the distributed web
How IPFS peer nodes identify each other on the distributed web
An introductory look at the cryptography of identity in plain Pythonmedium.com
Swapping bits and distributing hashes on the decentralized web
Swapping bits and distributing hashes on the decentralized web
How IPFS peers find, request, and retrieve content (and each other) on the decentralized webmedium.com
Part II —Running IPFS
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part I
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part I
How to quickly (and inexpensively) spin up a cloud-based IPFS peer and start connecting to the distributed web
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part II
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part II
How to set up a reverse proxy with NGINX and IPFS to support secure connections with browser ĐApps
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part III
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part III
Making sense of the many IPFS configuration options
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part IV
Tutorial: Setting up an IPFS peer, part IV
Peeking under the hood of IPFS daemon profiles
Part III — Build Stuff
The definitive guide to publishing content on the decentralized web
The definitive guide to publishing content on the decentralized web
Build a simple decentralized RESTful endpoint with minimal effort using IPFS/IPNS
From Zero to Interplanetary Hero
From Zero to Interplanetary Hero
A fun guide to getting started with browser-based ĐApps on IPFS
A short trip to Jupyter via the Inter-planetary File System
A short trip to Jupyter via the Inter-planetary File System
Getting started with IPFS, Python, and Jupyter Notebooks
This single-page web app can edit itself
This single-page web app can edit itself
How to create a self-editing, (im)mutable web profile, and have fun doing it
Building an interplanetary ĐApp from scratch
Building an interplanetary ĐApp from scratch
And sending secret messages over the distributed web
Part IV — A Touch of Textile
Building a simple decentralized version control system with IPFS + Textile
Building a simple decentralized version control system with IPFS + Textile
Using Textile Threads & Schemas to make (document) history
Easy personal IPFS pinning service with Textile
Easy personal IPFS pinning service with Textile
A quick lesson in spinning up your own personal IPFS pinning service in no time with Textile Cafes
Quick Look: Textile Files and Schemas
Quick Look: Textile Files and Schemas
A video and transcript introducing Textile’s new Files API
Be sure to find Carson on our developer Slack channel, just pepper him with your questions 🤘. Or if you want him to speak at your next tech event, just shoot him a tweet 🙌. Speaking of which, don’t forget to apply to IPFS Camp today!