Finalizing your website

Yes, you can finalize real fast!

Once your websites files are pinned into IPFS, BushFire has the capability to use the DeSec.io API token, to go and do all the DNS settings in your Desec.io account, for the domain of your website. This is the penultimate step before the files fully gets hosted.

At the "Final step" page you would see a button (provided, the earlier steps were completed correctly) If you have given "ignore" in in the field where the DeSec.io API token was to be given (Step 1), it means that finalization would be done by you; and that button won't be available.

We have written another article here where you will get to know how to do the DNS settings yourself. That would be the route you need to take if you had entered "ignore" for the DeSec.io API Token.

If you go to the "Final Step" page and you see a message stating that website is not pinned, it usually means that you jumped ahead and the previous step/s were not fully done. Or there were errors in those steps.

In such a situation, you have two choices: Either you go back and make the require corrections in the earlier steps. Alternatively, you could use the simple form there to use an earlier QHash to restore the website to a previous version.

Remember BushFire has done just the penultimate step. Once that been done... this is what happens next:

As explained in another topic in this documentation; once the DNS settings are made for the site; and the Name Servers of the site are indeed pointing to the DeSec.io DNS service; it can take a few minutes up to a few hours for the Internet to recognize your website that was freshly pinned.

It all depends on how the DNS settings were propagated across the Internet. Propagation is explained here.

QHash and version history

After the penultimate step is complete; you would notice that the QHash generated during the pinning process is conveniently available to you in an input box. Copy that QHash carefully and add to the log of list of pinning you did for your website. Save the logs as a text file or in a spreadsheet for future use. Each QHash you noted in your log would take you to the version of your website at that point in time. In short, our system also preserves the history across time of your website. In fact, if you so want; you ca even restore your website back to an older version just by using that earlier QHash, as explained here.

Restoring an earlier version

When you start BushFire and go to the "Final step" page, you would notice that it will let you restore a website to an earlier QHash. But before you use that feature, ensure you entered the correct domain name as well as the DeSec.io API token, in the "First step" page. Of course, this assumes that you have pointed the name servers of your domain to DeSec.io. If not; you would need to follow the instructions given here, on how you too can enter the DNS settings manually. Restoring to an earlier version would always require you to pay pinning fees.(i.e. it is not capped)

The really, really final step :-)

There is one last and final work that is still remaining: Which is to inform CloudFlare IPFS gateway that your website has been configured correctly; and now your website needs a free HTTPS security certificate installed.

What is CloudFlare?

It is a neat CDN service. As part of its goodwill mission (I guess!) they are helping out websites which are hosted on the free IPFS cloud. They give a neat and extremely simple system for making your site secure i.e. accessible via the "https://" protocol. You need to go to this web-page:

Cloudflare Web3 | IPFS & Ethereumwww.cloudflare.com

At the bottom of that page from Cloudflare; there is a simple form with just one input box. Give your site's domain name there. Then click the button below. It may take a few minutes, and a few repeated clicks for it to register your website for https. Be patient. It does work. The moment it says "Certificate is live" (or something similar) it means, truly, that your website is indeed alive.

Note: That message may go away after a few seconds, only to be replaced by an error message. But don't worry. If you get the "Certificate is live" message at least once, it means the job is done. You can ignore other error messages that appear there.

Important note about CloudFlare caching mechanism

CloudFlare is a caching system. It is possible that when you pin your files from the second time onwards, CloudFlare is still serving out the earlier version of your website. That can happen because CloudFlare is serving the files from its own CDN cache and may not have refreshed the data from the IPFS cloud. If you find this happening, do the following:

GO to the following website: https://1.1.1.1/purge-cache Then provide the website address to your website in the form there. Select the "TXT" record. Click on the purge cache button. Do the same for the "CNAME" record too.

Thanks Cloudflare, you are truly a great help!