When I pin a file on my IPNS Desktop it should first check if port 4001 is unblocked

During testing on my local Mac I find if I pin a file on my IPNS Desktop it will successfully broadcast it as available to the network yet this file will be unaccessible unless I open port 4001 on my home router and point it to the Mac. I feel without this extra check IPNS’s DHT is getting polluted with files that are never actually hosted and accessible. Thoughts?

If you have the right flags set IPFS will do that. (even without you pinning), and start using other nodes as relay to fix the issue of you not being reachable (it’s the goal of the autonat service in IPFS, it will ask other node to call you back, and if they can’t it will attempt setting up a relay).

I think you only need to enable the Swarm.EnableAutoRelay (set it to true) key in the config.

Nice. Thanks! Any ETA when this will be default set on IPFS Desktop? It’s like how everyone has bittorrent downloads going while simultaneously providing uploads without configuring NAT. It’s a game changer in getting the public running the services on their desktops and laptops.

Idk, having tried autorelay, it really seems to me it’s not in a viable form for the current network right now (there could be multiple way to go about it, but one of the main issue is that there are very little nodes providing relaying currently, I would like to see other well established networks to be used for relaying and nat traversal as they already have a huge quantity of bandwith available (such as i2p or tor in mode where anonimity is disabled)).
I guess one thing that could be better is more indication on your status in IPFS desktop, so it would be explicit that something is wrong.

Idk if there is any future plans about that tho.

I think this would be perfect. I’ve never pinned anything from my Desktop IPFS and had it work on any proxy. A red button somewhere that says FIX UPLOADS that explains to me how to open the port on my router is enough to drive change. Right now nobody who is new to Desktop IFPS has any idea something is wrong.