TruthGate Setup

TruthGate is designed to run as a secure edge gateway alongside your IPFS node. While it’s technically possible to install on a personal desktop, the recommended setup is on a VPS or isolated Linux VM. This separation ensures stability, performance, and security.

• NetCup – For most people, NetCup’s ARM servers are the best value.
  • Example: NetCup ARM VPS 1000 G11
    • 6 vCPU (shared) • 8 GB RAM • 256 GB NVMe • €5.26 ($6.14)/month
  • They also offer inexpensive Local Block Storage (LBS) add-ons. Note: NetCup’s LBS uses SAS drives, which are slower than Hetzner’s NVMe-based LBS.
  • Though note you can expand the NVME storage at NetCup as well.
  • Offers geographic hosting in Austria for world class internet privacy laws.
• Hetzner – Slightly more expensive but comes with advantages.
  • Example: Shared vCPU ARM64 CAX21 (eu-central, Helsinki)
    • 4 vCPU • 8 GB RAM • 80 GB NVMe • 20 TB traffic • ~$6.99/month
  • Benefits:
    • Faster LBS storage (NVMe) for scaling IPFS nodes.
    • Easy upgrades to dedicated vCPUs if you need stronger performance.
    • Modern, user-friendly UI and management tools.
    • Offers geographic hosting in Finland (Helsinki) for world class internet privacy laws.

Rule of thumb:

• Go with NetCup if you want more cores and storage per dollar.
• Choose Hetzner if you value faster storage and a smoother management experience.

Please Use My Affiliate Links:
I suggest Hetzner and NetCup genuinely because that's what I use. But I also created and open sourced this entire project alone as a solo developer. By simply using these links to access Hetzner or NetCup, it will cost you nothing and I would greatly appreciate it.

NetCup - https://www.netcup.com/en/?ref=283649

Hetzner - https://hetzner.cloud/?ref=HzjqvQhGt5H3 - Get a $20 cloud credit

From my experience as well, Hetzner tends to be really fast. But those of us used to the WebAssembly world, what's a few more seconds to save some money with NetCup? Either way, it's up to you.

Thank you :)

TruthGate is best supported on Ubuntu.

• ✅ Ubuntu 24.04+ is the recommended baseline.
• ⚠️ Windows is technically supported by the codebase, but setup is more complex, requires extra configuration, and is not covered in this guide.

While Docker would make installation dead simple, TruthGate must run directly in the host environment where IPFS is installed. Here’s why:

• TruthGate communicates with IPFS primarily through the HTTP API.
• However, critical operations like importing and exporting IPNS keys are not exposed by the IPFS API.
• For these cases, TruthGate needs direct access to the ipfs CLI inside the same environment as your node.

• Memory: 8 GB minimum (sufficient for both TruthGate and IPFS).
• Storage: Check your VPS’s default NVMe allocation.
  • If you expect heavy usage, consider attaching Local Block Storage (LBS).
  • Recommended strategy: add 8 volumes and stripe them with LVM. This lets you scale IPFS storage easily in the future.
  • (Need help with LVM striping? Any AI assistant or sysadmin guide can provide the exact commands.)

After installation:

• Username: admin
• Password: LetMeInBro123

⚠️ Log in and change this password immediately.

If you need to reset the admin password later:

• Edit the TruthGate config file.
• Insert this reset token:

This will reset the password back to LetMeInBro123.

TruthGate manages specific MFS paths inside your IPFS node. Do not touch these:

• /production/**
• /staging/**

Tampering with these paths will break TruthGate’s publishing system.

After setup, TruthGate is straightforward and reliable — a true secure edge gateway for IPFS. If you can type basic commands, you’re golden.

If you're familiar with a VPS and setting up a Linux Box, skip to this step when you're ready to setup your environment:
The Setup Guide (Click Here) for the step-by-step installation guide.

If "VPS" or Linux containers or VM's are unfamiliar terminology to you. Don't worry!
Click here to read the VPS On Ramp guide for beginners