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<li class=""><a href="/core/auth/howitworks.html">How Atlas Works</a></li>
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<h1 class="uk-article-title">Overview of the Atlas network</h1>
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<time datetime="2018-09-05T15:55:10-07:00" itemprop="datePublished">
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<span style="font-family:Wingdings">w</span> Sep 5, 2018
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</time>
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</div>
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<div class="article-content">
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<p class="no_toc">This document describes the Atlas network, a peer-to-peer content-addressed
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storage system whose chunks’ hashes are announced on a public blockchain. Atlas
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allows users and developers to <strong>permanently store</strong> chunks of data that are
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<strong>replicated across every peer.</strong> As long as at least one Atlas peer is online,
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all chunks are available to clients.</p>
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<p>This document is aimed at developers and technical users. The following
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concepts are discussed:</p>
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<ul id="markdown-toc">
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<li><a href="#architecture" id="markdown-toc-architecture">Architecture</a></li>
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<li><a href="#motivation" id="markdown-toc-motivation">Motivation</a></li>
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<li><a href="#feature-comparison" id="markdown-toc-feature-comparison">Feature Comparison</a></li>
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</ul>
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<p>The reader of this document is expected to be familiar with the <a href="blockstack_naming_service.md">Blockstack
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Naming Service</a> (BNS), as well as Blockstack’s
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storage system <a href="https://github.com/blockstack/gaia">Gaia</a>. We advise the reader
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to familiarize themselves with both systems before approaching this document.</p>
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<h2 id="architecture">Architecture</h2>
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<p>Atlas is designed to integrate with BNS in order to allow users to
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store name state off-chain, encoded as a DNS zone file.
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The overwhelmingly-common use-cases in Blockstack are:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Storing a name’s routing information for its owners’ <a href="https://github.com/blockstack/gaia">Gaia</a>
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datastores.</li>
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<li>Storing BNS subdomain transactions and associated state.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Atlas is a middleware system in Blockstack. Most developers do not
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interact with it directly. BNS clients like the
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<a href="https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-browser">Blockstack Browser</a>
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automatically generate zone files for the names they register, and automatically
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propagate them to the Atlas network. BNS API endpoints, including our
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<a href="https://core.blockstack.org">public endpoint</a> and the
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<a href="https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack.js">blockstack.js</a> library,
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will automatically fetch zone files from Atlas when they need to look
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up data in Gaia (such as profiles and app data).</p>
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<div class="highlighter-rouge"><pre class="highlight"><code> +--------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+
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clients | Blockstack | | blockstack.js | | BNS API module |
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| Browser | | | | |
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+--------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+
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^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
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| | | | | |
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| | | | | |
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V | V | V |
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+----------+ | +----------+ | +----------+ |
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Gaia | Gaia hub | | | Gaia hub | | | Gaia hub | |
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+----------+ | +----------+ | +----------+ |
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| | |
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| | |
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V V V
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
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Atlas | Atlas Peer Network |
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+----------+------+----------+-----+----------+------+----------+
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BNS | BNS node | | BNS node | | BNS node | | BNS node |
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+----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +----------+
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^ ^ ^ ^
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| (indexing | | |
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| blockchain) | | |
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
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Blockchain | Blockchain Peer Network |
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
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Figure 1: Location of Atlas in the Blockstack architecture. Each BNS node
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implements an Atlas peer. An Atlas peer treats a name state value in BNS as
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the hash of a DNS zone file. Atlas peers exchange zone files with one another
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until they each have a full replica of all known zone files. Clients can look
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up zone files for names using the name's stat value as a zone file hash. Clients
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can broadcast zone files to the network if they match a previously-announced
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hash. In practice, zone files store URLs to a name owner's Gaia hubs, thereby
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allowing Blockstack apps to read and write data in Gaia.
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</code></pre>
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</div>
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<p>Nevertheless, Atlas is a general-purpose content-addressed storage
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system that advanced developers can use to <strong>host data in an immutable
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and durable manner.</strong> Beyond its default use-case in Blockstack,
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Atlas is ideal for tasks like:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Announcing PGP public keys under a human-readable name</li>
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<li>Storing package hashes for a software release</li>
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<li>Securely deploying shell scripts to remote VMs</li>
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<li>Binding human-readable names to Tor .onion addresses
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(<a href="https://github.com/blockstack-packages/blockstack-tor">example</a>)</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="motivation">Motivation</h2>
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<p>Atlas was designed to augment BNS. BNS allows each name to store a small
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amount of state—on the order of 20 bytes. The size is so small because the
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state must be recorded to a public blockchain, where the cost per byte is
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high and the blockchain protocol limits the size of transactions.</p>
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<p>To compensate for this, we developed an off-chain storage system allows BNS
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names to bind and store a large amount of state to each name in a way that
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<em>preserves the security properties of having written that state to the
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blockchain</em>. Instead of storing 20 bytes of data on the blockchain, a BNS name
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owner would store the <em>cryptograhpic hash</em> of its state, and then store the actual state
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Atlas. This decouples the name’s state size from the blockchain.</p>
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<p>The reference implementation of Atlas currently allows up to 40kb of state to be
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bound to a BNS name, instead of a measly 20 bytes. The 40kb of data is
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replicated to each BNS node, where it is stored forever.</p>
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<h2 id="feature-comparison">Feature Comparison</h2>
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<p>Atlas is not the only peer-to-peer content-addressible chunk store in existance. The following
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feature table describes Atlas in relation to other popular chunk stores.</p>
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<table>
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<thead>
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<tr>
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<th><strong>Features</strong></th>
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<th>Atlas</th>
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<th>BitTorrent</th>
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<th><a href="https://datproject.org/">DAT</a></th>
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<th><a href="https://ipfs.io">IPFS</a></th>
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<th><a href="https://github.com/ethersphere/swarm">Swarm</a></th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td>Each peer stores all chunks</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Replicas are permanent [1]</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Replicas are free</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Sybil-resistant chunk discovery</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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<td>X</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Sybil-resistant peer discovery</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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<td> </td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Fixed chunk size</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td> </td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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<td>X</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<p>[1] Here, “permanent” means that once a peer has data, they will never evict it
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as part of the protocol.</p>
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