# Better understanding IPFS gateways

**URL:** <https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/better-understanding-ipfs-gateways/13537>\
**Category:** Help\
**Tags:** go-ipfs\
**Created:** [February 21, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/better-understanding-ipfs-gateways/13537 "2022-02-21T14:25:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Glyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f1d935/32.png) [@Glyx](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/u/Glyx)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/better-understanding-ipfs-gateways/13537/1 "2022-02-21T14:25:24Z")

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Hello, I’m new here.

I have a question about the IPFS public HTTP gateways: I understood that they’re regular IPFS nodes that cache the content they’re tasked to retrieve (according to [here](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/more-information-on-how-ipfs-gateway-works/2509/8)), but I’ve come across a situation where I have a hash (file uploaded through Slate.host), I can retrieve the content via numerous gateways, yet `ipfs dht findprovs` doesn’t show any `peerID`. I haven’t been able to find a clear explanation about that (all I found is [this post](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/how-find-ip-in-ipfs/10896/7), but I don’t understand it very much). Are the HTTP gateways ‘special’ nodes that don’t advertise themselves on the DHT? or anything of the sort? If not then could someone please explain to me what it is that makes the gateway nodes ‘special’?

I found a related topic:

> [@Is there a way to know the peerId from the gateway response?](https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/is-there-a-way-to-know-the-peerid-from-the-gateway-response/5439):
>
> Appreciate any info / pointers for this question: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56208233/how-to-know-from-which-node-the-file-block-was-retrieved-when-querying-https](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56208233/how-to-know-from-which-node-the-file-block-was-retrieved-when-querying-https) When a query is made to public gateway, such as, [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXjFR1MiAMYprPjwLQwXXonYK52FihQVEL6a2dh3uhUey](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXjFR1MiAMYprPjwLQwXXonYK52FihQVEL6a2dh3uhUey) (which possibly resolves to my local node), is there any way, say response header or some other way, of knowing from which peer / remote machine the gateway retrieved the content ? Is there anyway, the gateway…

with the reply [here](https://github.com/ipfs-inactive/interface-js-ipfs-core/issues/476#issuecomment-555472124) (on GitHub) but I find that doesn’t quite applies to my question.