A blockchain-based log storage model with efficient query

Abstract The server logs play an essential role in website maintenance. When the Internet server is running, the service maintained may encounter various problems, and the logs generated by the server are the key data to locate the problems. However, the existing log storage systems are prone to a single point of failure, which may cause logs to be lost, and the problem cannot be rectified. Meanwhile, external attackers can tamper with logs to evade tracking, and the person in charge of an accident may also tamper with the log to evade responsibility. The advantages of blockchain, such as immutability, decentralization, and security, can effectively overcome these shortcomings. In this paper, we proposed a log data storage scheme based on blockchain and Interplanetary File System (IPFS). The lack of scalability of blockchain for storing large files is addressed by storing the log data stored in IPFS. Firstly, our model uses IPFS to store extensive file log data and combines blockchain technology to realize log data storage decentralization and difficulty to tamper. Secondly, to improve the query efficiency of log data, we propose two improved Merkle tree methods to provide fast queries of log data with a timestamp as query keywords. Finally, the experimental results show that the two methods have better log retrieval efficiency.