Officially Recommended by Filecoin — Getting to Know the Swan Client Tool

5 min readFeb 24, 2022

Introduction

Since its launch, the Filecoin network has experienced a huge surge in storage nodes, making Filecoin the largest distributed data storage network. The network offers cost-effective solutions that are attractive to users with various data storage needs. However, many users, especially beginners, find it challenging to upload files to the Filecoin network. Failing to upload files or complete storage deals successfully has led service providers to receive limited deals. As a result, the data storage capacity of the entire network is considerably low.

While users can send Filecoin storage deals in the commonly used Lotus Client, beginners and those with relatively small storage needs will find it hard to resolve issues such as finding storage providers and quotes. At users’ request, we conducted functional testings of multiple client tools officially recommended by the Filecoin Foundation, whereafter we concluded that the Swan Client Tool by FilSwan provides the best solution for ordinary users.

Swan Client Tool features

The Swan Client Tool is designed to help clients send public or private tasks. While competing for storage deals, providers will ensure improved user experiences in stable data storage services, lower prices, and more.

Additionally, FilSwan establishes a reputation system for storage providers and conducts a comprehensive ranking list. Doing so enables FilSwan to select premium quality providers, ensure data stability, and thus offer hassle-free solutions for users.

File/Data processing

For commercial users, it’s necessary to encrypt files or data accordingly before sending them to the Filecoin network. Since the Filecoin network is a public ledger, users need to encrypt sensitive data for better security and privacy. The Swan Client Tool-side supports AES encryption/decryption that enables a simple encryption/decryption process.

After data encryption, users can choose a Lotus node or go-car to generate a Car (the abbreviation of Content Addressable Archives) file. This data format is officially recommended by the Filecoin Foundation and is commonly used to store serialized DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) data.

Users may upload the generated Car file to the Web server or use the Swan Client Tool to upload it to the local IPFS server. Afterward, they need to set up the Swan Client Tool configurations that include options for setting up tasks and storage information like web-server information, IPFS server information, sender information, prices, etc. After setting up the Swan Client Tool configurations, the user can create corresponding storage tasks.

Currently, the maximum size of a FilSwan offline deal is 32 GB. Document segmentation techniques will help satisfy clients’ diverse transmission/storage needs.

Task Sending

The tasks generated by the client can be divided into private, public, and automatic bidding tasks. Clients need to select and configure one of these choices according to their situation. The task configuration is as follows:

Private task: Set “public_deal” to “false” in the configuration file config. toml.
Public task: Set “public_deal” to “true”.
Automatic bidding: set “public_deal” to true and “bid_mode” to “1”.

1. Private Task

A private task is a storage task created between a user and a specific storage provider. After private negotiations with designated storage providers, users can create private tasks with designated provider IDs. Corresponding storage providers will be able to receive them directly.

After receiving the deal request, the provider will start downloading files and will store the file data according to the information in the CSV file.

Private tasks are suitable for users who have large-scale storage needs and direct cooperation with storage providers. The difficulty of this method lies in the early agreement between the parties on various information, such as pricing. The smaller the data size is, the more cost-effective data storage will be, however fewer storage providers will be willing to receive deals.

2. Public Task

Public tasks are divided into public bidding and automatic bidding. Any storage provider can bid for public tasks on the FilSwan platform. Task winners will need to complete the storage tasks according to the process and obtain the corresponding reward.

2.1 Public bidding

Public bidding is a manual bidding task. Users need to configure the parameters of the public task, and then wait for a storage provider to bid for it. After bidding is completed, the FilSwan platform will send the task to one of the Filecoin storage providers. The provider will need to access the temporary data storage site in the. CSV file uploaded by the user and subsequently obtain the file. They need to store the file in the Filecoin network as requested and provide feedback on task completion, after which they will be rewarded.

2.2 Automatic bidding

To find a suitable provider, the client will need to configure relevant parameters in advance. Then, the FilSwan system will pair its configuration with providers who participate in automatic bidding.

To ensure optimal user experience, FilSwan applies a self-developed reputation system to rank and evaluate storage providers from a comprehensive perspective.

Automatic bidding requires users to set detailed task parameters as follows: the maximum paying price, whether the task is fast retrieval, task types (private or public), start epoch, Car file download address, Car file size, and other parameters. Only when these parameters are correctly set can the tasks be completed without further action required.

How it works

Based on the process of storing user data to the Filecoin network, Swan Client Tool is equivalent to Filecoin Client in offering data processing, task selection and sending, and data storage solutions.

Additionally, users and storage providers can assign and process diverse tasks on the FilSwan platform. It helps providers to increase their deals receiving success rate, enables users to find suitable providers quickly, reduces the time spent on price negotiations, and increases storage efficiency. The FilSwan platform can be applied to a full range of scenarios to satisfy novices and veterans with various data storage needs.

Furthermore, users can perform secondary development through the Swan Client Tool to perform more complex data processing, storage, and backup. In particular, the reputation system introduced by automatic bidding is very beginner-friendly. There is a possibility that third-party reputation systems like Swan Client Tool will further occupy the Filecoin market due to the absence of an official Filecoin tool. Undoubtedly, there will be diverse application scenarios for Swan Client Tool shortly.

Swan Client Tool Installation

Before installing Swan Client Tool, you’ll need to complete environment configuration as requested, install necessary prerequisites, get a target repository from GitHub, and then complete Swan Client Tool installation. Please refer to the official installation manual for more information:

Prerequisite:

Lotus node
go1.15+
python3.7+
pip3

Installation Instructions:

English Version: https://github.com/FilSwan/swan-client
Chinese Version: https://docs.filswan.com/chuang-jian-ren-wu-liu-cheng/1.-ming-ling-hang-an-zhuang

Tutorial Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Ly_KXnXKU

Support

In addition, FilSwan has established communities for beginners through Discord（ https://discord.com/invite/KKGhy8ZqzK) to resolve questions regarding storage deal-sending.