XEP-0232: Software Information

This document specifies an extended data format whereby XMPP service discovery responses can include detailed information about the software application that powers a given XMPP entity for including detailed data about the in service discovery responses.

WARNING: This Standards-Track document is Experimental. Publication as an XMPP Extension Protocol does not imply approval of this proposal by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Implementation of the protocol described herein is encouraged in exploratory implementations, but production systems should not deploy implementations of this protocol until it advances to a status of Draft.

Document Information

Author Information

Peter Saint-Andre

JabberID: stpeter@jabber.org
URI: https://stpeter.im/

Legal Notices

Copyright

Permissions

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to make use of the Specification without restriction, including without limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy, modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification. Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP Standards Foundation.

Disclaimer of Warranty

## NOTE WELL: This Specification is provided on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. In no event shall the XMPP Standards Foundation or the authors of this Specification be liable for any claim, damages, or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort, or otherwise, arising from, out of, or in connection with the Specification or the implementation, deployment, or other use of the Specification. ##

Limitation of Liability

In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall the XMPP Standards Foundation or any author of this Specification be liable for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising out of the use or inability to use the Specification (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if the XMPP Standards Foundation or such author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

IPR Conformance

This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which may be found at <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/ipr-policy.shtml> or obtained by writing to XSF, P.O. Box 1641, Denver, CO 80201 USA).

Discussion Venue

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 XMPP Standards 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".

1. Introduction
2. Use Case
3. Security Considerations
4. IANA Considerations
5. XMPP Registrar Considerations
5.1. Field Standardization
Notes
Revision History

1. Introduction

Service Discovery Extensions [1] defines a way for an XMPP entity to include extended information in its responses to Service Discovery [2] information requests. This document specifies a usage of XEP-0128 whereby an XMPP entity can provide detailed data about itself in such responses. This protocol is intended to replace Software Version [3] for software information discovery (thus reducing or eliminating the need for distinct software version requests) and also provides a format that can be encapsulated into Entity Capabilities [4] notifications.

2. Use Case

To illustrate this usage, consider the following example of a disco#info request-response interaction that includes detailed client information:

<iq from='romeo@montaguue.lit/orchard'
    to='juliet@capulet.lit/chamber'
    id='disco1'
    type='get'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>

<iq from='juliet@capulet.lit/chamber'
    to='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
    id='disco1'
    type='result'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
    <identity category='client' name='Exodus' type='pc'/>
    <feature var='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco'/>
    <x xmlns='jabber:x:data' type='result'>
      <field var='FORM_TYPE' type='hidden'>
        <value>urn:xmpp:dataforms:softwareinfo</value>
      </field>
      <field var='os'>
        <value>Windows</value>
      </field>
      <field var='os_version'>
        <value>XP</value>
      </field>
      <field var='software'>
        <value>Exodus</value>
      </field>
      <field var='software_version'>
        <value>0.9.1</value>
      </field>
    </x>
  </query>
</iq>

3. Security Considerations

Service discovery information is typically world-readable. Therefore, care should be taken in exposing information that may make it easier for a potential attacker to target the publishing entity's system (e.g., the operating system on which the software is running).

4. IANA Considerations

5. XMPP Registrar Considerations

The XMPP Registrar [6] shall include the following information in its registries.

5.1 Field Standardization

Field Standardization for Data Forms [7] defines a process for standardizing the fields used within Data Forms qualified by a particular namespace, and XEP-0128 describes how to use field standardization in the context of service discovery. This section registers fields for software information scoped by the "urn:xmpp:dataforms:softwareinfo" FORM_TYPE.

Registry Submission

<form_type>
  <name>urn:xmpp:dataforms:softwareinfo</name>
  <doc>XEP-0232</doc>
  <desc>
    Forms enabling the communication of detailed information
    about an XMPP client.
  </desc>
  <field
      var='os'
      type='text-single'
      label='The operating system on which the XMPP software is running'/>
  <field
      var='os_version'
      type='text-single'
      label='The operating system version'/>
  <field
      var='software'
      type='text-single'
      label='The XMPP software running at the entity'/>
  <field
      var='software_version'
      type='text-single'
      label='The XMPP software version'/>
</form_type>

Notes

1. XEP-0128: Service Discovery Extensions <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0128.html>.

2. XEP-0030: Service Discovery <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0030.html>.

3. XEP-0092: Software Version <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0092.html>.

4. XEP-0115: Entity Capabilities <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0115.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 XMPP Registrar maintains a list of reserved protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of XMPP extension protocols approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation. For further information, see <http://www.xmpp.org/registrar/>.

7. XEP-0068: Field Data Standardization for Data Forms <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0068.html>.