FileWallet: A File Management System Based on IPFS and Hyperledger Fabric

Abstract

Online file management systems enable cooperatively editing and sharing. However, due to the cost of communication and storage infrastructures, traditional online file management services, e.g., Google Drive and OneDrive, usually provide limited storage space and relatively low download speed for free users. To achieve better performance, ordinary users have to purchase their expensive services. Moreover, these file management systems are based on centralized architecture and bear the privacy leakage risk, because users’ personal files are stored and controlled by their servers. To address the above problems, we propose a peer-to-peer (P2P) file management system based on IPFS and Hyperledger Fabric, named as FileWallet, which can serve as a personal wallet for individual users or organizations to store and share their files in a secure manner. In FileWallet, the users form a P2P network and a Fabric network, where P2P network builds the connections and distributed storage network and the Fabric network sustains consistent blockchain ledgers to record file operation related transactions. In our FileWallet, the storage and communication costs are mitigated in the decentralized design, and the file owner can fully control the access permission of the file to preserve the file privacy. The design of the system architecture, main functionalities, and system implementations are presented in this paper. The performance of the system is evaluated through experiments, and the experimental results show its wide applicability and scalability.