This document defines a method for specifying contact addresses related to an XMPP service.
NOTICE: This JEP is currently within Last Call or under consideration by the Jabber Council for advancement to the next stage in the JSF standards process. For further details, visit <http://www.jabber.org/council/queue.shtml>.
Status: Proposed
Type: Informational
Number: 0157
Version: 0.1
Last Updated: 2005-09-08
JIG: Standards JIG
Approving Body: Jabber Council
Dependencies: XMPP Core, JEP-0030, JEP-0128
Supersedes: None
Superseded By: None
Short Name: N/A
Wiki Page: <http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/Contact Addresses for XMPP Services (JEP-0157)>
Email: stpeter@jabber.org
JID: stpeter@jabber.org
Email: jajcus@jajcus.net
JID: jajcus@jabber.bnet.pl
This Jabber Enhancement Proposal is copyright 1999 - 2005 by the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF) and is in full conformance with the JSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy <http://www.jabber.org/jsf/ipr-policy.shtml>. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Creative Commons Attribution License (<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/>).
The preferred venue for discussion of this document is the Standards-JIG discussion list: <http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards-jig>.
The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 3920) and XMPP IM (RFC 3921) specifications contributed by the Jabber Software Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this JEP has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.
The keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
RFC 2142 [1] specifies conventional electronic mailbox names for common services, roles, and functions related to SMTP, NNTP, and HTTP (such as postmaster@domain, usenet@domain, and webmaster@domain). However, no such conventional email address or Jabber ID (JID) has been specified for XMPP services. This document remedies that oversight.
Many existing Jabber servers use the bare domain of the server as an alias for the server administrators, such that a <message/> stanza addressed to that domain name (e.g., "jabber.org") is delivered to the JIDs of the server administrators (this does not apply to <iq/> or <presence/> stanzas). It is RECOMMENDED that all server implementations support this functionality, and the authors will work toward standardization of this functionality in the forthcoming revisions to RFC 3920 [2].
The administrators of a Jabber/XMPP service may desire to advertise more detailed contact information related to that service. This contact information may include email addresses, web URLs, and JIDs for specific roles and functions such as abuse reports, customer feedback, sales inquiries, technical support, and security concerns. For this purpose, domains MUST support the electronic mailboxes required by RFC 2142. However, additional contact mechanisms may be desirable, and it would be helpful if those who want to initiate contact could discover the contact information using standard XMPP extensions, specifically Service Discovery [3]. To make such discovery possible, we specify a Service Discovery Extensions [4] mechanism that a server MAY return in response to service discovery information ("disco#info") requests sent to the bare domain of the server. This information SHOULD be scoped using a FORM_TYPE of "http://jabber.org/network/serverinfo" (as already specified in JEP-0128) and data form fields registered for this purpose as defined in the Jabber Registrar Considerations section of this document.
To illustrate this usage, consider the following example of a disco#info request sent to the mythical shakespeare.lit XMPP server:
Example 1. Entity queries server for information
<iq from='juliet@capulet.com/chamber'
to='shakespeare.lit'
id='disco1'
type='get'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>
Example 2. Server communicates information
<iq from='shakespeare.lit'
to='juliet@capulet.com/chamber'
id='disco1'
type='result'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
<identity category='server' type='im'/>
<feature var='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco'/>
<x xmlns='jabber:x:data' type='result'>
<field var='FORM_TYPE' type='hidden'>
<value>http://jabber.org/network/serverinfo</value>
</field>
<field var='abuse-addresses'>
<value>mailto:abuse@shakespeare.lit</value>
<value>xmpp:shakespeare.lit/abuse</value>
</field>
<field var='feedback-addresses'>
<value>http://shakespeare.lit/feedback.php</value>
<value>mailto:feedback@shakespeare.lit</value>
<value>xmpp:shakespeare.lit/feedback</value>
</field>
<field var='sales-addresses'>
<value>xmpp:bard@shakespeare.lit</value>
</field>
<field var='security-addresses'>
<value>xmpp:shakespeare.lit/security</value>
</field>
<field var='support-addresses'>
<value>http://shakespeare.lit/support.php</value>
<value>xmpp:shakespeare.lit/support</value>
</field>
</x>
</query>
</iq>
Advertising contact addresses may open those addresses to unwanted communication. Server administrators should balance the need for openness with the desire for control over communication with customers and peers. That said, certain contact addresses (e.g., abuse addresses and security addresses) may enable server administrators to more quickly learn of abusive usage and potential security holes, and advertisement of those addresses is strongly encouraged.
This JEP requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [5].
The Jabber Registrar [6] shall include the following information in its registries.
Field Standardization for Data Forms [7] defines a process for standardizing the fields used within Data Forms qualified by a particular namespace, and JEP-0128 describes how to use field standardization in the context of service discovery. This section registers fields for server information scoped by the "http://jabber.org/network/serverinfo" FORM_TYPE.
Registry Submission
<form_type>
<name>http://jabber.org/network/serverinfo</name>
<doc>JEP-0157</doc>
<desc>
Forms enabling the communication of contact addresses
and other server information.
</desc>
<field
var='abuse-addresses'
type='list-multi'
label='One or more addresses for communication related to abusive traffic'/>
<field
var='feedback-addresses'
type='list-multi'
label='One or more addresses for customer feedback'/>
<field
var='sales-addresses'
type='list-multi'
label='One or more addresses for communication related to sales and marketing'/>
<field
var='security-addresses'
type='list-multi'
label='One or more addresses for communication related to security concerns'/>
<field
var='support-addresses'
type='list-multi'
label='One or more addresses for customer support'/>
</form_type>
1. RFC 2142: Mailbox Names for Common Services, Roles and Functions <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt>.
2. RFC 3920: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Core <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3920.txt>.
3. JEP-0030: Service Discovery <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0030.html>.
4. JEP-0128: Service Discovery Extensions <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0128.html>.
5. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols, such as port numbers and URI schemes. For further information, see <http://www.iana.org/>.
6. The Jabber Registrar maintains a list of reserved Jabber protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of protocols approved by the Jabber Software Foundation. For further information, see <http://www.jabber.org/registrar/>.
7. JEP-0068: Field Data Standardization for Data Forms <http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0068.html>.
END