ipfs/kubo v0.5.0-rc2

Release v0.5.0-rc2

on GitHub

Release issue: #7109

Changes between RC1 and RC2

Other than bug fixes, the following major changes were made between RC1 and RC2.

QUIC Upgrade

In RC1, we downgraded to a previous version of the (experimental) QUIC transport so we could build on go 1.13. In RC2, our QUIC transport was patched to support go 1.13 so we've upgraded back to the latest version.

NOTE: The latest version implements a different and incompatible draft (draft 27) of the QUIC protocol than the previous RC and go-ipfs 0.4.23. In practice, this shouldn't cause any issues as long as your node supports transports other than QUIC (also necessary to communicate with the vast majority of the network).

DHT "auto" mode

In this RC, the DHT will not enter "server" mode until your node determines that it is reachable from the public internet. This prevents unreachable nodes from polluting the DHT. Please read the "New DHT" section in the issue body for more info.

AutoNAT

IPFS has a protocol called AutoNAT for detecting whether or not a node is "reachable" from the public internet. In short:

1. An AutoNAT client asks a node running an AutoNAT service if it can be reached at one of a set of guessed addresses.
2. The AutoNAT service will attempt to "dialback" those addresses (with some restrictions, e.g., we won't dial back to a different IP address).
3. If the AutoNAT service succeeds, it will report back the address it successfully dialed and the AutoNAT client will now know that it is reachable from the public internet.

In go-ipfs 0.5, all nodes act as AutoNAT clients to determine if they should switch into DHT server mode.

As of this RC, all nodes (except new nodes initialized with the "lowpower" config profile) will also run a rate-limited AutoNAT service by default. This should have minimal overhead but we may change the defaults in RC3 (e.g., rate limit further or only enable the AutoNAT service on DHT servers).

In addition to enabling the AutoNAT service by default, this RC changes the AutoNAT config options around:

1. It removes the Swarm.EnableAutoNATService option.
2. It Adds an AutoNAT config section (empty by default). This new section is documented in docs/config.md along with the rest of the config file.

LAN/WAN DHT

As forwarned in the RC1 release notes, RC2 includes the split LAN/WAN DHT. All IPFS nodes will now run two DHTs: one for the public internet (WAN) and one for their local network (LAN).

• When connected to the public internet, IPFS will use both DHTs for finding peers, content, and IPNS records, but will only publish records (provider and IPNS) to the WAN DHT to avoid flooding the local network.
• When not connected to the public internet, IPFS will publish provider and IPNS records to the LAN DHT.

This feature should not have any noticeable (performance or otherwise) impact and go-ipfs should continue to work in all the currently supported network configurations: VPNs, disconnected LANs, public internet, etc.

In a future release, we hope to use this feature to limit the advertisement of private addresses to the local LAN.