Abstract
This specification defines the WebFinger protocol, which can be used
to discover information about people or other entities on the
Internet using standard HTTP methods.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................2
2. Terminology....................................................3
3. Overview.......................................................3
4. Example Use of WebFinger.......................................3
4.1. Locating a User's Blog....................................3
4.2. Auto-Configuration of Email Clients.......................5
4.3. Retrieving Device Information.............................7
5. WebFinger Protocol.............................................8
5.1. Performing a WebFinger Query..............................8
5.2. The JSON Resource Descriptor (JRD) Document...............9
5.3. The "rel" Parameter.......................................9
5.4. WebFinger and URIs.......................................11
6. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)..........................12
7. Controlling Access to Information.............................12
8. Hosted WebFinger Services.....................................13
9. Security Considerations.......................................14
10. IANA Considerations..........................................15
11. Acknowledgments..............................................16
12. References...................................................16
12.1. Normative References....................................16
12.2. Informative References..................................16
Author's Addresses...............................................17
1. Introduction
There is a utility found on UNIX systems called "finger" [12] that
allows a person to access information about another person or entity
that has a UNIX account. The information queried might be on the
same computer or a computer anywhere in the world. What is returned
via "finger" is a plain text file that contains unstructured
information provided by the queried user, stored in a file named
.plan in the user's home directory.
Like the finger command, WebFinger can be used to discover
information about people or other entities on the Internet. However,
unlike the legacy finger command, WebFinger uses standard HTTP [2]
methods and utilizes a structured document that contains link
relations that are suitable for automated processes. These link
relations point to information and might return properties related to
information a user or entity on the Internet wishes to share. For a
person, the kinds of information that might be shared include a
personal profile address, identity service, telephone number, or
preferred avatar. WebFinger may also be used to discover information
about other entities on the Internet, such as the amount of toner in
a printer or the physical location of a server.
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
Information returned via WebFinger might be for direct human
consumption (e.g., another user's phone number) or it might be used
by systems to help carry out some operation (e.g., facilitate logging
into a web site by determining a user's identity service).
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1].
WebFinger makes heavy use of "Link Relations". Briefly, a Link
Relation is an attribute and value pair used on the Internet wherein
the attribute identifies the type of link to which the associated
value refers. In Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Web Linking
[4], the attribute is a "rel" and the value is an "href". WebFinger
also uses the "rel" attribute, where the "rel" value is either a
single IANA-registered link relation type [12] or a URI [6].
3. Overview
WebFinger enables the discovery of information about users, devices,
and other entities that are associated with a host. Discovery
involves a single HTTP GET request to the well-known [3] "webfinger"
resource at the target host and receiving back a JavaScript Object
Notation (JSON) [5] Resource Descriptor (JRD) document [11]
containing link relations. The request MUST include the URI or IRI
[7] for the entity for which information is sought as a parameter
named "resource".
Use of WebFinger is illustrated in the examples in Section 4, then
described more formally in Section 5.
4. Example Use of WebFinger
In this section, we show a few samples using WebFinger so you can see
what the protocol looks like. This is not an exhaustive list of
possible uses and the entire section is non-normative.
4.1. Locating a User's Blog
Assume you receive an email from Bob and he refers to something he
posted on his blog, but you do not know where Bob's blog is located.
It would be simple to discover the address of Bob's blog if he makes
that information available via WebFinger.
Let's assume your email client can discover the blog for you. After
receiving the message from Bob (bob@example.com), you instruct your
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
email client to perform a WebFinger query. It does so by issuing the
following HTTPS query to example.com:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Abob%40example.com HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The server might then respond with a message like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
{
"expires" : "2012-11-16T19:41:35Z",
"subject" : "acct:bob@example.com",
"aliases" :
[
"http://www.example.com/~bob/"
],
"properties" :
{
"http://example.com/rel/role/" : "employee"
},
"links" :
[
{
"rel" : "http://webfinger.net/rel/avatar",
"type" : "image/jpeg",
"href" : "http://www.example.com/~bob/bob.jpg"
},
{
"rel" : "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
"href" : "http://www.example.com/~bob/"
},
{
"rel" : "blog",
"type" : "text/html",
"href" : "http://blogs.example.com/bob/",
"titles" :
{
"en-us" : "The Magical World of Bob",
"fr" : "Le monde magique de Bob"
}
},
{
"rel" : "vcard",
"href" : "http://www.example.com/~bob/bob.vcf"
}
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
]
}
The email client would take note of the
"http://packetizer.com/rel/blog" link relation in the above JRD
document that refers to Bob's blog. This URL would then be presented
to you so that you could then visit his blog. The email client might
also note that Bob has published an avatar link relation and use that
picture to represent Bob inside the email client. Lastly, the client
might consider the vcard [14] link relation in order to update
contact information for Bob.
In the above example, an "acct" URI [8] is used in the query, though
any valid alias for the user might also be used. An alias is a URI
that is different from the "subject" URI that identifies the same
entity. In the above example, there is one "http" alias returned,
though there might have been more than one. Had the "http:" URI
shown as an alias been used to query for information about Bob, the
query would have appeared as:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2F~bob%2F HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The response would have been substantially the same, with the subject
and alias information changed as necessary. Other information, such
as the expiration time might also change, but the set of link
relations and properties would be the same with either response.
4.2. Identity Provider Discovery for OpenID Connect
Suppose Carol wishes to authenticate with a web site she visits using
OpenID Connect [16]. She would provide the web site with her OpenID
Connect identifier, say carol@example.com. The visited web site
would perform a WebFinger query looking for the OpenID Connect
Provider. Since the site is interested in only one particular link
relation, the server might utilize the "rel" parameter as described
in section 5.3:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Acarol%40example.com&
rel=http%3A%2F%2Fopenid.net%2Fspecs%2Fconnect%2F1.0%2Fissuer
HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The server might respond with a JSON Resource Descriptor document
like this:
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
{
"expires" : "2012-11-16T19:41:35Z",
"subject" : "acct:carol@example.com",
"aliases" :
[
"http://www.example.com/~carol/"
],
"properties" :
{
"http://example.com/rel/role/" : "employee"
},
"links" :
[
{
"rel" : "http://openid.net/specs/connect/1.0/issuer",
"href" : "https://openid.example.com/"
}
]
}
Since the "rel" parameter only filters the link relations returned by
the server, other elements of the response, including any aliases or
properties, would be returned. Also, since support for the "rel"
parameter is optional, the client must not assume the "links" array
will contain only the requested link relation.
4.3. Auto-Configuration of Email Clients
WebFinger could be used to auto-provision an email client with basic
configuration data. Suppose that sue@example.com wants to configure
her email client. Her email client might issue the following query:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=mailto%3Asue%40example.com HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The response from the server would contain entries for the various
protocols, transport options, and security options. If there are
multiple options, the server might return a link relation that for
each of the valid options and the client or Sue might select which
option to choose. Since JRD documents list link relations in a
specific order, then the most-preferred choices could be presented
first. Consider this response:
{
"subject" : "mailto:sue@example.com",
"links" :
[
{
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
"rel" : "http://example.net/rel/smtp-server",
"properties" :
{
"host" : "smtp.example.com",
"port" : "587",
"login-required" : "yes",
"transport" : "starttls"
}
},
{
"rel" : "http://example.net/rel/imap-server",
"properties" :
{
"host" : "imap.example.com",
"port" : "993",
"transport" : "ssl"
}
}
]
}
In this example, you can see that the WebFinger server advertises an
SMTP service and an IMAP service. In this example, the "href"
entries associated with the link relation are absent. This is valid
when there is no external reference that needs to be made.
4.4. Retrieving Device Information
As another example, let's suppose there are printers on the network
and you would like to check the current toner level for a particular
printer identified via the URI device:p1.example.com. While the
"device" URI scheme is not presently specified, we use it here for
illustrative purposes.
Following the procedures similar to those above, a query may be
issued to get link relations specific to this URI like this:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?resource=
device%3Ap1.example.com HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The link relations that are returned for a device may be quite
different than those for user accounts. Perhaps we may see a
response like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
{
"subject" : "device:p1.example.com",
"links" :
[
{
"rel" : "http://example.com/rel/tipsi",
"href" : "http://192.168.1.5/npap/"
}
]
}
While this example is fictitious, you can imagine that perhaps the
Transport Independent, Printer/System Interface [15] may be enhanced
with a web interface that allows a device that understands the TIP/SI
web interface specification to query the printer for toner levels.
5. WebFinger Protocol
WebFinger is a simple HTTP-based web service that utilizes the JSON
Resource Descriptor (JRD) document format and the Cross-Origin
Resource Sharing (CORS) [10] specification.
5.1. Performing a WebFinger Query
WebFinger clients issue queries to the well-known resource /.well-
known/webfinger. All queries MUST include the "resource" parameter
exactly once and set to the value of the URI for which information is
being sought. If the "resource" parameter is absent or malformed,
the WebFinger server MUST return a 400 status code.
Clients MUST first attempt a query the server using HTTPS and utilize
HTTP only if an HTTPS connection cannot be established. If the HTTPS
server has an invalid certificate or returns an HTTP status code
indicating some error, including a 4xx or 5xx, the client MUST NOT
use HTTP in attempt to complete the discovery.
WebFinger servers MUST return JRD documents as the default
representation for the resource. A client MAY include the "Accept"
header to indicate a desired format, though no other format is
defined in this specification. For the JRD document, the media type
is "application/json" [5].
If the client queries the WebFinger server and provides a URI for
which the server has no information, the server MUST return a 404
status code.
WebFinger servers MAY include cache validators in a response to
enable conditional requests by clients and/or expiration times as per
RFC 2616 section 13.
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
5.2. The JSON Resource Descriptor (JRD) Document
The JSON Resource Descriptor (JRD) document is formally described in
Appendix A of [11]. There is a RECOMMENDED order of JRD elements.
Further, WebFinger requires some elements and some are optional. The
following list indicates the preferred order and comments on the
presence or absence:
o "expires" (element) is optional
o "subject" (element) is required and MUST be the value of the
"resource" parameter
o "aliases" (array) is optional and absence or an empty array
are semantically the same
o "properties" (array) is optional and absence or an empty
array are semantically the same
o "links" (array) is optional and absence or an empty array are
semantically the same
Any array elements within the "links" array are presented by the
server in order of preference.
The "links" array is comprised of several elements. As above, the
following list indicates the preferred order or elements within a
link array element and comments on the presence or absence:
o "rel" (element) is required
o "type" (element) is optional
o "href" (element) is optional
o "template" (element) is forbidden
o "titles" (array) is optional and absence or an empty array
are semantically the same
o "properties" (array) is optional and absence or an empty
array are semantically the same
5.3. The "rel" Parameter
WebFinger defines the "rel" parameter to request only a subset of the
information that would otherwise be returned without the "rel"
parameter. When the "rel" parameter is used, only the link relations
that match the link relations provided via "rel" are included in the
array of links returned in the JSON Resource Descriptor document.
All other information normally present in a resource descriptor is
present in the resource descriptor, even when "rel" is employed.
The "rel" parameter MAY be transmitted to the server multiple times
in order to request multiple types of link relations.
The purpose of the "rel" parameter is to return a subset of
resource's link relations. It is not intended to reduce the work
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
required of a server to produce a response. That said, use of the
parameter might reduce processing requirements on either the client
or server, and it might also reduce the bandwidth required to convey
the partial resource descriptor, especially if there are numerous
link relation values to convey for a given resource.
Support for the "rel" parameter is OPTIONAL, but RECOMMENDED on the
server.
The following example presents the same example as found in section
4.1, but uses the "rel" parameter in order to select two link
relations:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Abob%40example.com&
rel=http%3A%2F%2Fwebfinger.net%2Frel%2Fprofile-page&
rel=vcard HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
In this example, the client requests the link relations of type
"http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page" and "vcard". The server then
responds with a message like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
{
"expires" : "2012-11-16T19:41:35Z",
"subject" : "acct:bob@example.com",
"aliases" :
[
"http://www.example.com/~bob/"
],
"properties" :
{
"http://example.com/rel/role/" : "employee"
},
"links" :
[
{
"rel" : "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
"href" : "http://www.example.com/~bob/"
},
{
"rel" : "vcard",
"href" : "http://www.example.com/~bob/bob.vcf"
}
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
]
}
As you can see, the server returned only the link relations requested
by the client, but also included the other parts of the JSON resource
Descriptor document.
In the event that a client requests links for link relations that are
not defined for the specified resource, a resource descriptor MUST be
returned. In the returned JRD, the "links" array MAY be absent,
empty, or contain only links that did match a provided "rel" value.
The server MUST NOT return a 404 status code when a particular link
relation specified via "rel" is not defined for the resource, as a
404 status code is reserved for indicating that the resource itself
(e.g., either /.well-known/webfinger or the resource indicated via
the "resource" parameter) does not exist.
5.4. WebFinger and URIs
WebFinger requests can include a parameter specifying the URI of an
account, device, or other entity. WebFinger is agnostic regarding
the scheme of such a URI: it could be an "acct" URI [7], an "http" or
"https" URI, a "mailto" URI, or some other scheme.
For resources associated with a user account at a host, use of the
"acct" URI scheme is RECOMMENDED, since it explicitly identifies an
account accessible via WebFinger. Further, the "acct" URI scheme is
not associated with other protocols as, by way of example, the
"mailto" URI scheme is associated with email. Since not every host
offers email service, using the "mailto" URI scheme [9] is not ideal
for identifying user accounts on all hosts. That said, use of the
"mailto" URI scheme would be ideal for use with WebFinger to discover
mail server configuration information for a user.
A host MAY utilize one or more URIs that serve as aliases for the
user's account, such as URIs that use the "http" URI scheme [2]. A
WebFinger server MUST return substantially the same response to both
an "acct" URI and any alias URI for the account, including the same
set of link relations and properties. The only elements in the
response that MAY be different include "subject", "expires", and
"aliases". In addition, the server SHOULD include the entire list
aliases for the user's account in the JRD returned when querying the
LRDD resource or when utilizing the "resource" parameter.
5.5. "webfinger" Subdomain
It may be difficult or impossible for some hosts wanting to support
WebFinger requests to make a WebFinger server available for the host
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
at the path /.well-known/webfinger. For instance, in the case of
hosted domains, no web server may be running on the host at all.
For that reason, WebFinger servers for a host MAY be located on a
specific subdomain named "webfinger". For example, the WebFinger
server for the host example.com MAY be located at the URI
https://webfinger.example.com/.well-known/webfinger.
Note that a WebFinger service can operate on any host, such as
bldg6.hq.example.com. As such, the alternate location for the
WebFinger service in that example would be at the host named
webfinger.bldg6.hq.example.com.
WebFinger clients MUST first attempt to make a WebFinger request to
the host's /.well-known/webfinger endpoint, and then if that fails,
clients MUST then attempt to make the request to the WebFinger
endpoint at the "webfinger" subdomain of that host.
It should be appreciated that a 4xx, 5xx, or other status code from
the web server at the host indicates that a web server is operational
and such responses MUST NOT be considered a failure for the purposes
of this section. For the sake of operational efficiency, a client
MUST query the "webfinger" subdomain only if it has reason to believe
that a web server is not operating at the host, such as when there is
a failure to establish an HTTP(S) connection to the host.
6. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
WebFinger is most useful when it is accessible without restrictions
on the Internet, including web browsers. Therefore, WebFinger
servers MUST support Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) [10] by
including the following HTTP header in responses:
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Enterprise WebFinger servers that wish to restrict access to
information from external entities SHOULD use a more restrictive
Access-Control-Allow-Origin header.
7. Access Control
As with all web resources, access to the /.well-known/webfinger
resource MAY require authentication. Further, failure to provide
required credentials MAY result in the server forbidding access or
providing a different response than had the client authenticated with
the server.
Likewise, a server MAY provide different responses to different
clients based on other factors, such as whether the client is inside
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
or outside a corporate network. As a concrete example, a query
performed on the internal corporate network might return link
relations to employee pictures, whereas link relations for employee
pictures might not be provided to external entities.
Further, link relations provided in a WebFinger server response MAY
point to web resources that impose access restrictions. For example,
the aforementioned corporate server may provide both internal and
external entities with URIs to employee pictures, but further
authentication might be required in order for the client to access
the picture resources if the request comes from outside the corporate
network.
The decisions made with respect to what set of link relations a
WebFinger server provides to one client versus another and what
resources require further authentication, as well as the specific
authentication mechanisms employed, are outside the scope of this
document.
8. Hosted WebFinger Services
As with most services provided on the Internet, it is possible for a
domain owner to utilize "hosted" WebFinger services. By way of
example, a domain owner might control most aspects of their domain,
but use a third-party hosting service for email. In the case of
email, mail servers for a domain are identified by MX records. An MX
record points to the mail server to which mail for the domain should
be delivered. It does not matter to the sending mail server whether
those MX records point to a server in the destination domain or a
different domain.
Likewise, a domain owner might utilize the services of a third party
to provide WebFinger services on behalf of its users. Just as a
domain owner was required to insert MX records into DNS to allow for
hosted email serves, the domain owner is required to redirect HTTP(S)
queries to its domain to allow for hosted WebFinger services (if a
web server is operating at the domain) or insert DNS records for the
"webfinger" subdomain described in section 5.5.
When a query is issued to /.well-known/webfinger and the target host
is operating a web server, the web server MUST return a 301, 302, or
307 response status code that includes a Location header pointing to
the location of the hosted WebFinger service URL. The WebFinger
service URL does not need to point to /.well-known/* on the hosting
service provider server. In fact, it should not, as that location
would be reserved for queries relating to the service provider's
domain. WebFinger clients MUST follow all 301, 302, or 307
redirection requests.
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
As an example, let's assume that example.com's WebFinger services are
hosted by example.net. Suppose a client issues a query for
acct:alice@example.com like this:
GET /.well-known/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Aalice%40example.com HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
The server might respond with this:
HTTP/1.1 307 Temporary Redirect
Location: http://wf.example.net/example.com/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Aalice%40example.com HTTP/1.1
The client MUST follow the redirection, re-issuing the request to the
URL provided in the Location header.
9. Security Considerations
All of the security considerations applicable to Web Host Metadata
[11] and Cross-Origin Resource Sharing [10] are also applicable to
this specification. Of particular importance is the recommended use
of HTTPS to ensure that information is not modified during transit.
Clients MUST verify that the certificate used on an HTTPS connection
is valid.
Service providers and users should be aware that placing information
on the Internet accessible through WebFinger means that any user can
access that information. While WebFinger can be an extremely useful
tool for allowing quick and easy access to one's avatar, blog, or
other personal information, users should understand the risks, too.
If one does not wish to share certain information with the world, do
not allow that information to be freely accessible through WebFinger
and do not use any service supporting WebFinger. Further, WebFinger
servers MUST NOT be used to provide any personal information to any
party unless explicitly or implicitly authorized by the person whose
information is being shared. Implicit authorization can be determined
by the user's voluntary utilization of a service as defined by that
service's relevant terms of use or published privacy policy.
The aforementioned word of caution is perhaps worth emphasizing again
with respect to dynamic information one might wish to share, such as
the current location of a user. WebFinger can be a powerful tool
used to assemble information about a person all in one place, but
service providers and users should be mindful of the nature of that
information shared and the fact that it might be available for the
entire world to see. Sharing location information, for example,
would potentially put a person in danger from any individual who
might seek to inflict harm on that person.
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
The easy access to user information via WebFinger was a design goal
of the protocol, not a limitation. If one wishes to limit access to
information available via WebFinger, such as a WebFinger server for
use inside a corporate network, the network administrator must take
measures necessary to limit access from outside the network. Using
standard methods for securing web resources, network administrators
do have the ability to control access to resources that might return
sensitive information. Further, WebFinger servers can be employed in
such a way as to require authentication and prevent disclosure of
information to unauthorized entities.
A WebFinger server has no means of ensuring that information provided
by a user is accurate. Likewise, neither the server nor the client
can be absolutely guaranteed that information has not been
manipulated either at the server or along the communication path
between the client and server. Use of HTTPS helps to address some
concerns with manipulation of information along the communication
path, but it clearly cannot address issues where the server provided
incorrect information, either due to being provided false information
or due to malicious behavior on the part of the server administrator.
As with any information service available on the Internet, users
should wary of information received from untrusted sources.
Because WebFinger requests for a host may be served by the
"webfinger" subdomain of the host, it should be ensured that the
"webfinger" subdomain is under the same administrative control as the
domain itself (just as one would typically expect that the "www"
subdomain should be controlled by the same authority as the domain
itself).
10. IANA Considerations
This specification registers the "webfinger" well-known URI in the
Well-Known URI Registry as defined by [3].
URI suffix: webfinger
Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC QQQ
Related information: The JSON Resource Descriptor (JRD) documents
obtained via the WebFinger web service are described in RFC 6415
Appendix A and RFC QQQ.
[RFC EDITOR: Please replace "QQQ" references in this section with the
number for this RFC.]
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
11. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Eran Hammer-Lahav, Blaine Cook,
Brad Fitzpatrick, Laurent-Walter Goix, Joe Clarke, Michael B. Jones,
and Peter Saint-Andre for their invaluable input.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[2] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[3] Nottingham, M., Hammer-Lahav, E., "Defining Well-Known Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 5785, April 2010.
[4] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010.
[5] Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.
[6] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and Masinter, L., "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986,
January 2005.
[7] Duerst, M., "Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)",
RFC 3987, January 2005.
[8] Saint-Andre, P., "The 'acct' URI Scheme", draft-ietf-appsawg-
acct-uri-01, October 2012.
[9] Duerst, M., Masinter, L., and J. Zawinski, "The 'mailto' URI
Scheme", RFC 6068, October 2010.
[10] Van Kesteren, A., "Cross-Origin Resource Sharing", W3C CORS
http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/, July 2010.
[11] Hammer-Lahav, E. and Cook, B., "Web Host Metadata", RFC 6415,
October 2011.
12.2. Informative References
[12] IANA, "Link Relations", http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-
relations/.
Jones, et al. Expires May 21, 2013 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft WebFinger November 2012
[13] Zimmerman, D., "The Finger User Information Protocol", RFC
1288, December 1991.
[14] Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification", RFC 6350, August
2011.
[15] "Transport Independent, Printer/System Interface", IEEE Std
1284.1-1997, 1997.
[16] Sakimura, N., Bradley, J., Jones, M., de Medeiros, B.,
Mortimore, C., and E. Jay, "OpenID Connect Messages 1.0", June
2012, http://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-messages-1_0.html.
Author's
Paul E. Jones
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Gonzalo Salgueiro
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Joseph Smarr
Google
Additional Source: Internet Engineering Task Force