provider

Overview ¶

Provider CLI can be used to start an index-provider daemon that runs a reference implementation of the provider interface, with ability to publish advertisements by importing/removing CAR files and server content retrieval via DataTransfer GraphSync protocol.

Usage:

NAME:
   provider - Indexer Reference Provider Implementation

USAGE:
   provider [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

COMMANDS:
   announce       Publish an announcement message for the latest advertisement
   announce-http  Publish an announcement message for the latest advertisement to a specific indexer via http
   connect        Connects to an indexer through its multiaddr
   daemon         Starts a reference provider
   import, i      Imports sources of multihashes to the index provider.
   index          Push a single content index into an indexer
   init           Initialize reference provider config file and identity
   list, ls       List local paths to data
   remove, rm     Removes previously advertised multihashes by the provider.
   mirror         Mirrors the advertisement chain from an existing index provider.
   help, h        Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --help, -h     show help
   --version, -v  print the version

To run a provider daemon it must first be initialized. To initialize the provider, execute:

provider init

Initialization generates a default configuration for the provider instance along with a randomly generated identity keypair. The configuration is stored at user home under ".index-provider/config" in JSON format. The root configuration path can be overridden by setting the "PROVIDER_PATH" environment variable.

Once initialized, the daemon can be started by executing:

provider daemon

The running daemon allows the advertisement for new content to indexer nodes and retrieval of content over graphsync. It also exposes an administrative HTTP endpoint at "" that allows

Additionally, it starts an admin HTTP server at "http://localhost:3102" that enables administrative operations using the "provider" CLI tool.

To advertise the availability of content by the daemon to indexer nodes, run:

provider import car -l http://localhost:3102 -i <path-to-car-file>

This command will generate a new advertisement for the list of multihashes in the CAR file and publishes that advertisement onto the configured gossipsub channel for indexer nodes to see. Additionally, it makes the CAR content available for retrieval over GraphSync.

Similarly to advertise that the content is no longer available for retrieval by the daemon, use "provider remove car" command.

For a full list of available commands and options run:

provider -h