There are times when a client might want or need to discover what its external Internet Protocol (IP) address is, e.g. when gathering transport candidates for SOCKS5 Bytestreams (XEP-0065) [1] or Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method (XEP-0176) [2]. One way to do so is for the client to ask the XMPP server to which it has connected. This simple specification defines such a method.
First the client sends an IQ-get request to its server.
<iq from='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
id='ik2s7159'
type='get'>
<ip xmlns='urn:xmpp:sic:0'/>
</iq>
The server then returns an IQ-result containing an <ip/> element whose XML character data specifies the client's IP address according to the server.
<iq id='ik2s7159'
to='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
type='result'>
<ip xmlns='urn:xmpp:sic:0'>192.168.4.1</ip>
</iq>
The IP address could be IPv4 or IPv6.
<iq id='ik2s7159'
to='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
type='result'>
<ip xmlns='urn:xmpp:sic:0'>2001:db8::9:1</ip>
</iq>
If an entity supports this protocol, it MUST report that by including a service discovery feature of "urn:xmpp:sic:0" in response to disco#info requests (see Protocol Namespaces regarding issuance of one or more permanent namespaces).
<iq from='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
id='ux71f395'
to='montague.lit'
type='get'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>
<iq from='montague.lit'
id='ux71f395'
to='romeo@montague.lit/orchard'
type='result'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
<feature var='urn:xmpp:sic:0'/>
</query>
</iq>
RFC 3920 [3] specifies that client IP addresses shall not be made public. If a client requests its own IP address, that policy is not violated. However, a server MUST NOT return the IP address of another client (e.g., if a connected client sends a SIC request to the bare JID of another user); instead, it MUST return a <forbidden/> error.
This document requires no interaction with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [4].
This specification defines the following XML namespace:
Upon advancement of this specification from a status of Experimental to a status of Draft, the XMPP Registrar [5] shall add the foregoing namespace to the registry located at <https://xmpp.org/registrar/namespaces.html>, as described in Section 4 of XMPP Registrar Function (XEP-0053) [6].
If the protocol defined in this specification undergoes a revision that is not fully backwards-compatible with an older version, the XMPP Registrar shall increment the protocol version number found at the end of the XML namespaces defined herein, as described in Section 4 of XEP-0053.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<xs:schema
xmlns:xs='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
targetNamespace='urn:xmpp:sic:0'
xmlns='urn:xmpp:sic:0'
elementFormDefault='qualified'>
<xs:element name='ip' type='xs:string'/>
</xs:schema>
Thanks to Thiago Camargo and Diana Cionoiu for their prodding to define this extension.
This document in other formats: XML PDF
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The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 6120) and XMPP IM (RFC 6121) 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.
The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.
Discussion on other xmpp.org discussion lists might also be appropriate; see <https://xmpp.org/community/> for a complete list.
Errata can be sent to <editor@xmpp.org>.
The following requirements 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. XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html>.
2. XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0176.html>.
3. RFC 3920: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Core <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3920>.
4. 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/>.
5. 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 <https://xmpp.org/registrar/>.
6. XEP-0053: XMPP Registrar Function <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0053.html>.
Note: Older versions of this specification might be available at https://xmpp.org/extensions/attic/
Removed client inclusion of its IP address; added IPv6 example.
First draft.
@report{saint-andre2009sic,
title = {Server IP Check},
author = {Saint-Andre, Peter},
type = {XEP},
number = {xxxx},
version = {0.0.2},
institution = {XMPP Standards Foundation},
url = {https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-xxxx.html},
date = {2009-03-10/2009-03-10},
}END