Introduction

I have been running IPFS from a terminal window using ipfs daemon. Now, I am setting up a systemd service to manage this automatically.

Steps to run IPFS daemon as a systemd service on Linux Mint 21.x:

1. Create a systemd script file /etc/systemd/system/ipfs.service with the following content:

   [Unit]
   Description=IPFS daemon
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ipfs daemon
   User=<your_user>
   Restart=on-failure
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=default.target
   

   Get the file ipfs.service here

2. Start the IPFS daemon:

   sudo systemctl start ipfs
   

3. Check the status of the IPFS daemon:

   systemctl status ipfs
   

   You should see something like this:

   $ systemctl status ipfs
   ● ipfs.service - IPFS daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ipfs.service; enabled; vendor preset: >)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2023-08-16 07:24:35 PDT; 38min ago
   Main PID: 49516 (ipfs)
   Tasks: 25 (limit: 14171)
   Memory: 522.3M
   CPU: 19min 14.954s
   CGroup: /system.slice/ipfs.service
   └─49516 /usr/local/bin/ipfs daemon
   
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip4/65.38.54.233/ud>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip4/65.38.54.233/ud>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip6/::1/tcp/4001
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip6/::1/udp/4001/qu>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip6/::1/udp/4001/qu>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Swarm announcing /ip6/::1/udp/4001/qu>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: RPC API server listening on /ip4/127.>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: WebUI: http://127.0.0.1:5001/webui
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Gateway server listening on /ip4/127.>
   Aug 16 07:24:37 daniel-mp-dq ipfs[49516]: Daemon is ready
   

4. Enable the daemon to start on boot:

   sudo systemctl enable ipfs
   

After running the above command, the IPFS daemon will start automatically on boot, ensuring your IPFS content remains available even after a restart.

References

Run IPFS on Boot (Ubuntu/Debian)

A SystemD Unit for IPFS