XEP-0157: Contact Addresses for XMPP Services

This document defines a method for specifying contact addresses related to an XMPP service.

NOTICE: This document is currently within Last Call or under consideration by the XMPP Council for advancement to the next stage in the JSF standards process.

Document Information

Status: Proposed
Type: Informational
Number: 0157
Version: 0.4
Last Updated: 2007-01-05
Publishing Organization: Jabber Software Foundation
Approving Body: XMPP Council
Dependencies: XMPP Core
Supersedes: None
Superseded By: None
Short Name: N/A
Wiki Page: <http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/Contact Addresses for XMPP Services (XEP-0157)>

Author Information

Legal Notice

This XMPP Extension Protocol is copyright 1999 - 2007 by the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF) and is in full conformance with the JSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/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/>).

Discussion Venue

The preferred venue for discussion of this document is the Standards-JIG discussion list: <http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards-jig>.

Relation to XMPP

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 document 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.

Conformance Terms

The following keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Note: This document describes a protocol or best practice that is intended for incorporation into the specification that will supersede RFC 3920 [1] within the Internet Standards Process, i.e., rfc3920bis [2]. This document is provided only for the purpose of open community discussion of the potential modification and will be obsoleted as soon as the relevant RFC is published.

RFC 2142 [3] specifies conventional electronic mailbox names for common services, roles, and functions related to SMTP, NNTP, and HTTP (such as postmaster@domain.tld, usenet@domain.tld, and webmaster@domain.tld). However, no such conventional email address or XMPP address (JID) has been specified for XMPP services. This document remedies that oversight.

2. XMPP Address

Many existing Jabber/XMPP server implementations use the bare domain of the server (e.g., "domain.tld") as an alias for the server administrator(s), such that a <message/> stanza addressed to that domain name (e.g., "jabber.org") is delivered to the JIDs of the server administrator(s). [4] Unfortunately, this may result in overloading of the bare domain address (i.e., it may be desirable to send messages to the server's address without having those messages delivered to the server admins). Therefore, it is RECOMMENDED to instead support a special address of <domain.tld/admin> for this functionality. A domain that provides such functionality MAY also advertise the service through an XMPP URI (see RFC 4622 [5]) of <xmpp:domain.tld/admin> or (per XMPP URI Query Components [6]) <xmpp:domain.tld/admin?message>.

3. Email Address

Consistent with RFC 2142, a domain that offers a Jabber/XMPP service SHOULD provide an Internet mailbox of "XMPP" for inquiries related to that service. A domain that provides such functionality MAY also advertise the service through a Mailto URI (see RFC 2368 [7]) of <mailto:xmpp@domain.tld>.

4. Security Considerations

Providing or 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.

5. IANA Considerations

This document requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [8].

6. XMPP Registrar Considerations

This document requires no interaction with the XMPP Registrar [9].

Notes

Revision History

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