libp2p / libp2p/notes

Offline Message Queue

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Description

There's an open problem we'd like to resolve:

  1. User A generates some content and adds it to IPFS. They want to deliver this content to user B.
  2. User A tries to connect to user B. However, it turns user B is offline.
  3. User A goes offline.

Currently, we have no good way to deliver this information to user B. Textile uses the DHT as follows:

  1. User A fails to connect to user B.
  2. User A puts PeerIdOf(UserB) -> CidOf(content) to the DHT (treating the DHT as a sloppy hash table).
  3. When user B comes online, they find themselves in the DHT and download their messages.
  4. Finally, they send an ACK back to user A (using the same mechanism).

Unfortunately:

  1. This is relying a lot on potentially ephemeral nodes.
  2. There's no way to remove these messages from the DHT until they expire (see: https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht/issues/196).

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No repository files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by reviewing the proposed Textile DHT flow and the linked go-libp2p-kad-dht issue, then establish an agreed design for reliable offline delivery, message removal, and acknowledgements before implementation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
distributed-systems, networking
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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