My immediate assumption is **yes, it can**, because someone may use a specific domain merely as a gateway, and point to a different domain for resolution.
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@julian@activitypub.space Here's Mastodon's server admin documentation for the feature: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/config/#web_domain And here's GoToSocial's: https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/advanced/host-account-domain/
Notably, everyone so far other than Takahē treats this as a server-level configuration, when it would work perfectly fine as a per-account setting. I've had a FediForum demo titled “None of you have any idea how close we already are to custom handle domains in profile settings” drafted in my head for years, I just can't find the time to put it together.
> @julian@fietkau.social said:
>
> Notably, everyone so far other than Takahē treats this as a server-level configuration, when it would work perfectly fine as a per-account setting.oooooooooh, now you have my attention.
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@julian@activitypub.space Here's what Takahē has to say on the subject: https://docs.jointakahe.org/en/latest/domains/
Even they don't go all the way, they “only” let server admins add a selection of WebFinger domains for users to choose from.
So what if we put a “handle domain” field into people's account settings, let them enter whatever they want, and on submission we test whether that domain's WebFinger query for the username in question returns a valid result pointing back to our local actor?
I honestly think this would work.
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@mkljczk The service domain thing has the advantage that the chosen domain works even with servers that don't respect split-domain setups, but I don't know if I would bother with it just for that advantage. Why does the other way need host-meta?
Would be incredibly cool to see per-account WebFinger-based custom handle domains in a major platform!
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@julian@activitypub.space Here's what Takahē has to say on the subject: https://docs.jointakahe.org/en/latest/domains/
Even they don't go all the way, they “only” let server admins add a selection of WebFinger domains for users to choose from.
So what if we put a “handle domain” field into people's account settings, let them enter whatever they want, and on submission we test whether that domain's WebFinger query for the username in question returns a valid result pointing back to our local actor?
I honestly think this would work.
@julian@fietkau.social yes I agree, I think this would work too. The hard part is having the Webfinger endpoint set up on the other hostname.
It's a bit technical for just anybody to do it, but I could conceivably see a simple nginx config set up to serve just one record.....
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@julian@activitypub.space I haven't fully thought through the ramifications, but it would be slightly simpler (for situations other than mere static file hosting) to ask the WebFinger domain owner to set up an HTTP redirect for /.well-known/webfinger back to the ActivityPub server. The ActivityPub server could then do an ACME-like (as in Let's Encrypt) challenge to check that this redirect is in place, and if so, proceed to serve the correct WebFinger payload itself.
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@mkljczk Hmm, true! Is that something a setup like this would run into? I would think the name part of the handle would still be fully governed by the ActivityPub server, which could enforce its own uniqueness constraints.
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@julian@activitypub.space I haven't fully thought through the ramifications, but it would be slightly simpler (for situations other than mere static file hosting) to ask the WebFinger domain owner to set up an HTTP redirect for /.well-known/webfinger back to the ActivityPub server. The ActivityPub server could then do an ACME-like (as in Let's Encrypt) challenge to check that this redirect is in place, and if so, proceed to serve the correct WebFinger payload itself.
@julian@activitypub.space Yo @by_caballero if I recall correctly this was a passion topic of yours, check out this fun thread!
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@julian You're not wrong -- it's just generally not considered "authoritative".
Compare to DNS via the authoritative nameserver, versus DNS via a public resolver. dns:trwnh.com is different than dns://8.8.8.8/trwnh.com in that the latter is explicitly resolved via Google, or dns://1.1.1.1/trwnh.com to resolve via Cloudflare.
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@julian You're not wrong -- it's just generally not considered "authoritative".
Compare to DNS via the authoritative nameserver, versus DNS via a public resolver. dns:trwnh.com is different than dns://8.8.8.8/trwnh.com in that the latter is explicitly resolved via Google, or dns://1.1.1.1/trwnh.com to resolve via Cloudflare.
@julian If you want to be fully accurate, you can consider my "WebFinger ID" to not be trwnh@mastodon.social or acct:trwnh@mastodon.social but rather https://mastodon.social/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:trwnh@mastodon.social (which is linked to https://mastodon.social/users/trwnh via rel=self)
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@julian@activitypub.space @julian@fietkau.social thanks, most of the computing I do is numerical so as much as I try to keep up with how fedi works it's just not part of my day to day thought process and it's very educational to see threads like this one!
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