Use your personal consumer @ area for Mastodon discoverability with the WebFinger Protocol with out internet hosting a server



Mastodon is a free, open-source social networking service that’s decentralized and distributed. It was created in 2016 as an alternative choice to centralized social media platforms reminiscent of Twitter and Fb.

One of many key options of Mastodon is using the WebFinger protocol, which permits customers to find and entry details about different customers on the Mastodon community. WebFinger is an easy HTTP-based protocol that permits a consumer to find details about different customers or assets on the web by utilizing their e-mail deal with or different figuring out data. The WebFinger protocol is essential for Mastodon as a result of it permits customers to search out and observe one another on the community, no matter the place they’re hosted.

WebFinger makes use of a “well-known” path construction when calling an area. Chances are you’ll be accustomed to the robots.txt conference. All of us simply agree that robots.txt will sit on the high path of everybody’s area.

The WebFinger protocol is an easy HTTP-based protocol that permits a consumer or search to find details about different customers or assets on the web by utilizing their e-mail deal with or different figuring out data. My is first identify ultimately identify .com, so…my private WebFinger API endpoint is right here https://www.hanselman.com/.well-known/webfinger

The concept is that…

  1. A consumer sends a WebFinger request to a server, utilizing the e-mail deal with or different figuring out data of the consumer or useful resource they’re making an attempt to find.

  2. The server appears to be like up the requested data in its database and returns a JSON object containing the details about the consumer or useful resource. This JSON object known as a “useful resource descriptor.”

  3. The consumer’s consumer receives the useful resource descriptor and shows the data to the consumer.

The useful resource descriptor comprises numerous sorts of details about the consumer or useful resource, reminiscent of their identify, profile image, and hyperlinks to their social media accounts or different on-line assets. It could actually additionally embody different sorts of data, such because the consumer’s public key, which can be utilized to determine a safe reference to the consumer.

There’s an excellent explainer right here as properly. From that web page:

When somebody searches for you on Mastodon, your server shall be queried for accounts utilizing an endpoint that appears like this:

GET https://${MASTODON_DOMAIN}/.well-known/webfinger?useful resource=acct:${MASTODON_USER}@${MASTODON_DOMAIN}

Be aware that Mastodon consumer names begin with @ so they’re @username@someserver.com. Identical to twiter could be @shanselman@twitter.com I might be @shanselman@hanselman.com now!

Searching for me with Mastodon

So maybe https://www.hanselman.com/.well-known/webfinger?useful resource=acct:FRED@HANSELMAN.COM

Mine returns

{
"topic":"acct:shanselman@hachyderm.io",
"aliases":
[
"https://hachyderm.io/@shanselman",
"https://hachyderm.io/users/shanselman"
],
"hyperlinks":
[
{
"rel":"http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
"type":"text/html",
"href":"https://hachyderm.io/@shanselman"
},
{
"rel":"self",
"type":"application/activity+json",
"href":"https://hachyderm.io/users/shanselman"
},
{
"rel":"http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe",
"template":"https://hachyderm.io/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}"
}
]
}

This file must be returned as a mime kind of software/jrd+json

My web site is an ASP.NET Razor Pages web site, so I simply did this in Startup.cs to map that well-known URL to a web page/route that returns the JSON wanted.

providers.AddRazorPages().AddRazorPagesOptions(choices =>
{
choices.Conventions.AddPageRoute("/robotstxt", "/Robots.Txt"); //i did this earlier than, not wanted
choices.Conventions.AddPageRoute("/webfinger", "/.well-known/webfinger");
choices.Conventions.AddPageRoute("/webfinger", "/.well-known/webfinger/{val?}");
});

then I made a webfinger.cshtml like this. Be aware I’ve to double escape the @@ websites as a result of it is Razor.

@web page
@{
Structure = null;
this.Response.ContentType = "software/jrd+json";
}
{
"topic":"acct:shanselman@hachyderm.io",
"aliases":
[
"https://hachyderm.io/@@shanselman",
"https://hachyderm.io/users/shanselman"
],
"hyperlinks":
[
{
"rel":"http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
"type":"text/html",
"href":"https://hachyderm.io/@@shanselman"
},
{
"rel":"self",
"type":"application/activity+json",
"href":"https://hachyderm.io/users/shanselman"
},
{
"rel":"http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe",
"template":"https://hachyderm.io/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}"
}
]
}

It is a static response, but when I used to be internet hosting pages for multiple individual I would need to take within the url with the consumer’s identify, after which map it to their aliases and return these appropriately.

Even simpler, you’ll be able to simply use the JSON file of your personal Mastodon server’s webfinger response and SAVE IT as a static json file and duplicate it to your personal server!

So long as your server returns the suitable JSON from that well-known URL then it’s going to work.

So that is my template https://hachyderm.io/.well-known/webfinger?useful resource=acct:shanselman@hachyderm.io from the place I am hosted now.

If you wish to get began with Mastodon, begin right here. https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon/ it seems like Twitter circa 2007 besides it is not owned by anybody and relies on net requirements like ActivityPub.

Hope this helps!




About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, advisor, father, diabetic, and Microsoft worker. He’s a failed stand-up comedian, a cornrower, and a e-book creator.

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