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What is IPFS pinning?

Legacy: This page documents Filebase's IPFS tier. For new deployments, use the S3-compatible object storage tier with the s3.filebase.io endpoint.

IPFS nodes cache the content they fetch and serve it to other peers. Caches are finite — nodes periodically run garbage collection to evict cached content and make room for new content.

Pinning marks a piece of content as ineligible for garbage collection on a particular node. Pinned content stays on that node indefinitely, regardless of how often it's requested.

Why pinning matters​

Without pinning, content on IPFS can become unreachable as the nodes that happen to be caching it evict it over time. Pinning a CID on at least one well-connected, always-on node guarantees the content remains fetchable from that CID.

Filebase as a pinning service​

Files uploaded to a Filebase IPFS bucket are automatically pinned to IPFS and stay pinned for as long as you keep them in the bucket. No extra configuration is required.

Filebase implements the standard IPFS Pinning Service API, so any tool that supports remote pinning (the IPFS CLI, IPFS Desktop, programmatic clients) can target Filebase as the remote.

Pin a CID via the Pinning Service API​

curl -X POST https://api.filebase.io/v1/ipfs/pins \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "cid": "QmSp5z5RAgDhS38w7TmLMfyDXvY9i2hF6sJ4qm62SK5939",
    "name": "my-existing-cid"
  }'

See the Pinning Service API for the full reference.

Pin a CID via the IPFS CLI​

ipfs pin remote service add filebase https://api.filebase.io/v1/ipfs $ACCESS_TOKEN
ipfs pin remote add --service=filebase --name=my-cid <CID>

What's next​