WebFinger is a protocol specified by the Internet Engineering Task Force IETF that allows for discovery of information about people and things identified by a URI.[1] Information about a person might be discovered via an "acct:" URI, for example, which is a URI that looks like an email address.
WebFinger is specified as the discovery protocol for OpenID Connect,[2] which is a protocol that allows one to more easily log in to various sites on the Internet.[3]
The WebFinger protocol is used by the federated social networks GNU social[4] and Diaspora[5] to discover users on federated nodes and pods as well as the remoteStorage protocol.[6]
As a historical note, the name "WebFinger" is derived from the old ARPANET Finger protocol, but is a very different protocol designed for HTTP.[7]
The protocol payload is represented in JSON.
Example[edit]
{
"subject": "acct:bob@example.com",
"aliases": [
"https://www.example.com/~bob/"
],
"properties": {
"http://example.com/ns/role": "employee"
},
"links": [{
"rel": "http://webfinger.example/rel/profile-page",
"href": "https://www.example.com/~bob/"
},
{
"rel": "http://webfinger.example/rel/businesscard",
"href": "https://www.example.com/~bob/bob.vcf"
}
]
}
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Jones, Paul E.; Salgueiro, Gonzalo; Jones, Michael B.; Smarr, Joseph (September 2013). "RFC 7033: WebFinger".
- ^ OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0
- ^ Welcome to OpenID Connect
- ^ "AFAIK GNU Social uses OStatus, which uses WebFinger (for identities), Salmon (fo... | Hacker News". news.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
- ^ How Diaspora Connects Users
- ^ remoteStorage protocol draft at the IETF website.
- ^ Introducing WebFinger