Whether Twitter crumbles remains to be seen, though some signs are telling. Whatever happens, I'm continuing to invest a bit in Mastodon. Last week, I showed one's content between Twitter and Mastodon. how to sync This week, I've set up a Mastodon handle on my domain that redirects to my profile page: I want to explain how I achieved it and the problems I'm still having. Mastodon 101 Mastodon is different from Twitter in that it's not centralized: it's a federation of Mastodon servers, run independently and connected - the . To be precise, the Fediverse is more than Mastodon nodes, but let's not go that far. Fediverse The first problem when one wants to create a Mastodon account is to choose the correct instance. My first choice was , but it was closed to new accounts at the time. I set my eyes on for no reason but that it was in the proposal list and was French. mastodon.social mastodon.top The choice of a server is not that important since you can always to another instance and keep your followers. Note that you'll leave (and lose) your content on the original server. In all cases, your profile is namespaced by the server; thus, your handle changes. move your account Currently, I'm . But, perhaps I'll join my friends at or set up my own in the future? In both cases, I'll need to change the suffix of my handle. @frankel@mastodon.top foojay.social frankel.social Yet, I publish my handle on many sites and don't want to forget any updates when migrating. Hence, I require that the handle . must be immutable I mentioned above that Mastodon nodes belong to a network named Fediverse. Fediverse nodes may be connected through protocols. Mastodon nodes uses . Underneath, ActivityPub relies on WebFinger to find the correct location of a handle. several different ActivityPub WebFinger Mastodon needs to translate to . The translation must happen on any Mastodon instance, regardless of its domain. The process is based on the , RFC 7033: @frankel@mastodon.top https://mastodon.top/web/@frankel WebFinger specification aka WebFinger as described in is a spec that defines , given only a URI on a particular server. This allows anyone to look up where a resource is located without having to know its exact location beforehand; for example, by email or phone number. This lookup is directed at the endpoint , and a query parameter is passed along with the lookup. The resource URI used with Mastodon is the URI as described in , with the username of a profile that is hosted on a particular domain. RFC 7033 a method for resolving links to a resource /.well-known/webfinger resource acct: RFC 7565 -- What is WebFinger, and why is it used? According to the above, when searching for my profile, the query is the following: . You can check by going to a Mastodon instance you're logged in, searching for my handle, and watching the traffic via your preferred browser's developer tools. https://mastodon.top/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:frankel@mastodon.top The response is the following: {
  "subject":"acct:frankel@mastodon.top",
  "aliases":[
    "https://mastodon.top/@frankel",                      #1
    "https://mastodon.top/users/frankel"                  #1
  ],
  "links":[
    {
      "rel":"http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",      #2
      "type":"text/html",
      "href":"https://mastodon.top/@frankel"
    },
    {
      "rel":"self",
      "type":"application/activity+json",
      "href":"https://mastodon.top/users/frankel"
    },
    {
      "rel":"http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe",
      "template":"https://mastodon.top/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}"
    }
  ]
} URL to the profile for Mastodon rel The Immutable Mastodon Handle It should work if I return the same response to the same query on a custom domain. That's what I did: . Because it's a static page and I'm the only account, we don't need the query parameter: . https://blog.frankel.ch/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:me@frankel.ch https://blog.frankel.ch/.well-known/webfinger Given this, I can search on with (or any handle ), and it returns the expected results: https://mastodon.top @me@frankel.ch @frankel.ch I checked on other instances, , , but it doesn't work. The reason is simple. When searching on the instance you're logged in, the XHR is ; when not, it's . e.g. https://mastodon.social/ https://mastodon.top/api/v2/search?q=@me@frankel.ch&resolve=true&limit=5 https://mastodon.top/api/v2/search?q=@me@frankel.ch&resolve=false&limit=5 Conclusion: you can only query handles on the same instance when you're not authenticated. The documentation confirms that if is , then the query doesn't try to use WebFinger: resolve false resolve Boolean. Attempt WebFinger lookup? Defaults to false. -- Perform a search Conclusion The theory behind Mastodon and WebFinger is fascinating. I've managed to configure my immutable mastodon handle . That's the handle I can communicate to potential followers: if I move to another server, I'll update the with my new coordinates. @me@frankel.ch webfinger The trick works because I'm the only Mastodon user on my domain. If you have several, you'll need to go beyond a static page to return a different ID depending on the parameter; the rest stays the same. acct: To go further: Steps toward the glory of REST JSON Hypertext Application Language RFC 8288 - Web Linking Choosing an HTTP Status Code — Stop Making It Hard Originally published at on December 18th, 2022 A Java Geek Photo by on Shashank Rana Unsplash

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