thedappbook - Server

A simple blockchain application using smart contracts and IPFS

Overview

thedappbook allows users to connect their wallet and write posts on the decentralized wall. This happens through several components:

• Smart Contracts - Works like a decentralized database that stores the messages and the address of the user who posted them. Blockchain data is too expensive to store full res images, so instead it stores an IPFS CID that points to the content offchain.
• Server - Handles generating temporary Pinata API Keys to upload images and JSON content that can be consumed by the client.
• Client - The hosted web UI that the end user connects their wallet with and writes a message to the smart contract.

The Server

This particular repo provides an API endpoint to generate a temporary Pinata API key to handle uploads on the client. It will require making an Admin API key on the Pinata App.

This is currently not protected by any auth mechanism and is purely for educational purposes. For a production build consider locking the endpoint to authorized users only.

app.post('/keys', async (c) => {
  // Auth would go here
  try {
    const pinata = new PinataSDK({
      pinataJwt: c.env.PINATA_JWT,
      pinataGateway: ""
    })
  //.....

Development

Clone the repo and install the dependencies

git clone https://github.com/PinataCloud/thedappbook-server
cd thedappbook-server
npm install

Once the dependencies are installed start up the dev server

npm run dev

Everything is inside the src/index.ts file and is pretty simple. A POST request made to /keys will return a Pinata JWT that is only good for two uses and is restricted to only /pinning/pinFileToIPFS and /pinning/pinJSONToIPFS.

Deployment

First make sure to create a free Cloudflare account, then run the following command in the terminal.

npx wrangler login

Once you have logged in run the deployment command

npm run deploy

Follow the prompts to make the worker. Once complete make sure to add your PINATA_JWT API key by running the command below:

npx wrangler secret put PINATA_JWT

This will prompt you to paste in your key

Questions?

Feel free to reach out over Discord or Email!