peer-id JavaScript implementation

IPFS Peer Id implementation in JavaScript

Description

An IPFS Peer Id is based on a sha256 hash of the peer public key, using multihash

The public key is a base64 encoded string of a protobuf containing an RSA DER buffer. This uses a node buffer to pass the base64 encoded public key protobuf to the multihash for ID generation.

Usage

In Node.js through npm

> npm install --save peer-id

const PeerId = require('peer-id')

In the Browser through browserify

TODO: Figure out how to get this working with browserify and webpack. Browserify can't bundle our replacement of fs.readFileSync with require('buffer!./file').

In the Browser through <script> tag

Make the peer-id.js available through your server and load it using a normal <script> tag, this will export the PeerId object, such that:

const Id = PeerId

Gotchas

You will need to use Node.js Buffer API compatible, if you are running inside the browser, you can access it by PeerId.Buffer or you can install Feross's Buffer.

Creating a new Id

const PeerId = require('ipfs-peer')

// Create a new Id
const id = PeerId.create()

// Recreate an Id from Hex string
const id = PeerId.createFromHexString(str)

// Recreate an Id from a Buffer
const id = PeerId.createFromBytes(buf)

// Recreate an B58 String
const id = PeerId.createFromB58String(str)

// Recreate from a Public Key
const id = PeerId.createFromPubKey(pubKey)

// Recreate from a Private Key
const id = PeerId.createFromPrivKey(privKey)

Exporting an Id

// Print friendly format
id.toPrint() // returns an object with id, privKey and pubKey in hex format

// Export to an hex string
id.toHexString()

// Export to Buffer
id.toBytes() (same as id.id)

// Export to a B58 string
id.toB58String()

Id format

id.pubKey   // Buffer containing the Public Key
id.privKey  // Buffer containing the Private Key
id.id       // Buffer containing the multihash