Rehearse an offline restore of an IPFS release from a CAR
A release directory may read perfectly on a connected node because missing blocks arrive from other peers. An isolated restore shows which data the backup itself can supply.
Import into a fresh repository
Set ROOT_CID to the published directory containing manifest.json. Run the commands where release.car is a new filename. Export on the source node, then initialize a separate temporary Kubo repository. The import and final read run offline so they cannot fill holes from the network.
ipfs dag export "$ROOT_CID" > release.car
restore_repo=$(mktemp -d)
IPFS_PATH="$restore_repo" ipfs init
IPFS_PATH="$restore_repo" ipfs --offline dag import release.car
IPFS_PATH="$restore_repo" ipfs --offline cat "/ipfs/$ROOT_CID/manifest.json"
Check the paths your application needs
Compare the restored manifest with the release copy and read the large binaries it names, ideally checking their published digests. Reading a small manifest exercises only the blocks on that path. If a manifest points to another CID as plain text, export that other root as well. Keep the expected root outside the archive so the drill can detect an archive of the wrong release.