XEP-0395: Atomically Compare-And-Publish PubSub Items

Abstract: This specification provides a mechanism to atomically Compare-And-Publish items to a PubSub node.
Author: Florian Schmaus
Copyright: © 2017 – 2018 XMPP Standards Foundation. SEE LEGAL NOTICES.
Status: Deferred
WARNING: This document has been automatically Deferred after 12 months of inactivity in its previous Experimental state. Implementation of the protocol described herein is not recommended for production systems. However, exploratory implementations are encouraged to resume the standards process.
Type: Standards Track
Version: 0.2.0 (2018-12-06)

Document Lifecycle

Experimental
Deferred
Proposed
Stable
Final

1. Introduction¶

This specification provides a mechanism to atomically publish items to a PubSub node depending on the item ID of the node's latest item. This allows to prevent race conditions and avoids data loss in certain situations.

2. Discoverying Support¶

If an entity supports the Compared-And-Publish feature it MUST advertise the fact by returning a <feature/> with the 'var' attribute set to 'urn:xmpp:pubsub:cap:0' in response to a Service Discovery (XEP-0030) [1] query for information.

3. Compare-And-Publish PubSub Items¶

3.1 PubSub Item Compare-And-Publish Value (CAP-V)¶

PubSub services supporting the Compare-And-Publish PubSub extension MUST include a Comapre-and-Publish value (CAP-V) for every item in every response. The CAP-V value MUST change if the content of the item changed and different item content under the same node MUST NOT yield the same CAP-V. A simple computation of the CAP-ID would be to hash the String representation of the item's content.

CAP-Vs are assoicated with PubSub node's items via the item ID. The maping information is placed by the PubSub service in a <cap-v-map/> extension element, qualified by the 'urn:xmpp:pubsub:cap:0' namespace, as child element of the <items/> element. The <cap-v-map/> element contains one or more <cap-v-map-entry/> elements, of which each MUST have a 'item-id' and a 'cap-value' attribute. The former contains the PubSub item ID value and the later contains the according CAP-V of the item.

Example 1. Service returns some items and their according CAP-Vs¶

<iq type='result'
    from='pubsub.shakespeare.lit'
    to='francisco@denmark.lit/barracks'
    id='items1'>
  <pubsub xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub'>
    <items node='princely_musings'>
      <item id='368866411b877c30064a5f62b917cffe'>
        <entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
          <title>The Uses of This World</title>
          <summary>
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
          </summary>
        </entry>
      </item>
      <item id='3300659945416e274474e469a1f0154c'>
        <entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
          <title>Ghostly Encounters</title>
          <summary>
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
          </summary>
        </entry>
      </item>
      <item id='4e30f35051b7b8b42abe083742187228'>
        <entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom'>
          <title>Alone</title>
          <summary>
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
          </summary>
        </entry>
      </item>
      <cap-v-map xmlns='urn:xmpp:pubsub:cap:0'>
        <cap-value-map-entry
          item-id='368866411b877c30064a5f62b917cffe'
          cap-value='35a204c2-5d6c-43a2-8e0d-a235a627b04a'/>
        <cap-value-map-entry
          item-id='3300659945416e274474e469a1f0154c'
          cap-value='166b7c04-ed4d-4872-aa56-a58268da84e2'/>
        <cap-value-map-entry
          item-id='4e30f35051b7b8b42abe083742187228'
          cap-value='67f7f792-f2ee-4918-8894-36a3c4a6dd5f'/>
      </cap-v-map>
    </items>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

3.2 PubSub publishing using Compare-And-Publish¶

In order to atomically compare-and-publish an item, a client sends a Publish-Subscribe (XEP-0060) [2] <publish/> IQ with a 'pubsub#prev_item_cap_value' precondition publishing option, set to the value of the currently assumed CAP-V of the latest item of the node.

The PubSub service MUST only publish the item if the node's latest item CAP-V is equal to the CAP-V found in the 'pubsub#prev_item_cap_value' field.

Example 2. Atomically publishing with Compare-And-Publish¶

<iq type='set'
    from='hamlet@denmark.lit/blogbot'
    to='pubsub.shakespeare.lit'
    id='pub1'>
  <pubsub xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub'>
    <publish node='princely_musings'>
      <item id='2'>
        <entry xmlns='https://example.org'>
          <title>Soliloquy</title>
          <summary>
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
          </summary>
        </entry>
      </item>
    </publish>
    <publish-options>
      <x xmlns='jabber:x:data' type='submit'>
        <field var='FORM_TYPE' type='hidden'>
          <value>http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#publish-options</value>
        </field>
        <field var='pubsub#prev_item_cap_value'>
          <value>1</value>
        </field>
      </x>
    </publish-options>
  </pubsub>
</iq>

3.3 Could not publish because newest item ID did not match¶

In case the Compare-And-Publish operation failed because the latest node id is not the same as given in the 'previd' attribute in the request, the server returns an <conflict/> error of type 'modify' which a pubsub-specific condition of <precondition-not-met/> and a <compare-and-publish-failed/> element qualifed by the 'urn:xmpp:pubsub:cap:0' namespace. The element MUST have a 'cap-id' attribute with the CAP-V of the lastest item.

Example 3. Service returns IQ response notifying of failed Compare-And-Publish operation¶

<iq type='error'
    from='pubsub.shakespeare.lit'
    to='hamlet@denmark.lit/elsinore'
    id='retract1'>
  <error type='modify'>
    <conflict xmlns='urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas'/>
    <precondition-not-met xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#errors'/>
    <compare-and-publish-failed xmlns='urn:xmpp:pubsub:cap:0' cap-id='2'/>
  </error>
</iq>

4. Rationale¶

Unfortunately it was not possible to re-use the PubSub item ID for the "Atomically Compare-And-Publish" purpose. This is mostly due XEP-0060 § 12.8 stating that:

"If a publisher publishes an item and the ItemID matches that of an existing item, the pubsub service MUST overwrite the existing item and generate a new event notification."

Which means that the content of an item could change without its ID, rendering the item ID unusable for CAP.

Injecting a "cap"-namespaced attribute carrying the item's CAP-V into PubSub's <item/> would be a very elegant approach to assign CAP-Vs to PubSub items (and the favored one of the XEP's author). But the usage of namespaces attributes within XMPP is controversial. Therefore this XEP resorts to using the <cap-v-map/> approach for now.

5. Security Considerations¶

This extension protocol does not add any further security considerations to the ones mentioned in XEP-0060 § 14..

6. IANA Considerations¶

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

7. XMPP Registrar Considerations¶

8. XML Schema¶

9. Acknowledgements¶

Appendices

Appendix A: Document Information¶

Appendix B: Author Information¶

Florian Schmaus

Appendix C: 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. ##

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 from, out of, or in connection with the Specification or the implementation, deployment, or other use of 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 can be found at <https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/ipr-policy> or obtained by writing to XMPP Standards Foundation, P.O. Box 787, Parker, CO 80134 USA).

Visual Presentation

The HTML representation (you are looking at) is maintained by the XSF. It is based on the YAML CSS Framework, which is licensed under the terms of the CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.

Appendix D: Relation to XMPP¶

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.

Appendix E: Discussion Venue¶

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.

Appendix F: Requirements Conformance¶

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".