@mariusor @smallcircles @evan I’m not sure I completely follow.
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@steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan this is a huge thread, but off-cuff comment: C2S will need a "proxy" where you can fetch a remote object **with** identity/authentication
@thisismissem I have just implemented that for the GoActivityPub servers and it's easier than it sounds.
The only important step required is to convert the client authorization token (presumably an OAuth2 bearer token) to a valid actor and then further to a valid Private Key with which to sign the remote request. After that the only thing remaining is to pipe verbatim the received response to the client...
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@steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan this is a huge thread, but off-cuff comment: C2S will need a "proxy" where you can fetch a remote object **with** identity/authentication
@thisismissem @steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan
Just checking my memory.. this concept exists already, yes?
https://www.w3.org/wiki/ActivityPub/Primer/proxyUrl_endpoint
Are you just saying that the new API spec should include this? Or am I missing something?
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@steve yes, but something dumb that only fetches a URL and converts the resulting ActivityPub into a valid other type of representation is a valid client in my opinion. That's what I mean, was that unclear?
@mariusor @smallcircles @evan I *think* it’s
clear. I agree it’s a kind of “client”, just not necessarily a C2S client. -
@thisismissem @steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan
Just checking my memory.. this concept exists already, yes?
https://www.w3.org/wiki/ActivityPub/Primer/proxyUrl_endpoint
Are you just saying that the new API spec should include this? Or am I missing something?
@benpate @thisismissem @steve @mariusor @smallcircles
Yes, proxyUrl already exists. There's a use case here:
https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-api/issues/10
The only other way I've seen this use case discussed is with client-side HTTP Signature keys. There's some kind of negotiation between the server and the client, and then the client can make requests to remote servers using HTTP Signature and a key it controls.
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@mariusor @smallcircles @evan I *think* it’s
clear. I agree it’s a kind of “client”, just not necessarily a C2S client.@steve OK, but why?
I feel like I explained my position relatively clearly, I would like to understand yours, even though I feel some animosity has started to crop up.
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@mariusor @smallcircles @evan I think you read something other than what I wrote.
. I’m describing *user-defined* timelines where the heavy lifting is done in a server. That server would be (or could be) *general purpose* and not specific to an activity domain. I definitely wasn’t suggesting a monolithic, tightly-coupled client/server architecture. I want my timeline definitions to be portable and interoperable.@steve @mariusor @smallcircles so, a client could send some kind of definition for the timeline ("only Create/Image or Create/Video activities from the inbox where the image is tagged 'caturday'") and then the server sorts data into that timeline? That sounds like a neat feature.
However, I think there might be some definitions that are so common that we could just define them in a spec, like `notifications`.
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@steve OK, but why?
I feel like I explained my position relatively clearly, I would like to understand yours, even though I feel some animosity has started to crop up.
@mariusor @smallcircles @evan No animosity here. However, I’m not sure how to explain it more clearly. I’m referring to C2S as described in chapter 6 of the ActivityPub specification (and the conformance profiles in Section 2.1). It sounded to me like you’re using a more general definition of “client”, which is fine, just different in significant ways (if it only dereferences and renders AP data).
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@mariusor @smallcircles @evan No animosity here. However, I’m not sure how to explain it more clearly. I’m referring to C2S as described in chapter 6 of the ActivityPub specification (and the conformance profiles in Section 2.1). It sounded to me like you’re using a more general definition of “client”, which is fine, just different in significant ways (if it only dereferences and renders AP data).
He he, language is hard. A case of terminology overload and clashing terms. Domain driven design has the clearly defined bounded context here which is the scope within which terms are valid. Forming a consistency boundary. These context lines are blurred in fediverse talk.
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@thisismissem I have just implemented that for the GoActivityPub servers and it's easier than it sounds.
The only important step required is to convert the client authorization token (presumably an OAuth2 bearer token) to a valid actor and then further to a valid Private Key with which to sign the remote request. After that the only thing remaining is to pipe verbatim the received response to the client...
@mariusor @steve @smallcircles @evan well, your server *knows* it's access token to user mapping, so then you're just doing authorised fetch as that actor from server side
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@thisismissem @steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan
Just checking my memory.. this concept exists already, yes?
https://www.w3.org/wiki/ActivityPub/Primer/proxyUrl_endpoint
Are you just saying that the new API spec should include this? Or am I missing something?
@benpate @steve @mariusor @smallcircles @evan i'm not sure proxyUrl does what I'm thinking of here
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@benpate @thisismissem @steve @mariusor @smallcircles
Yes, proxyUrl already exists. There's a use case here:
https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-api/issues/10
The only other way I've seen this use case discussed is with client-side HTTP Signature keys. There's some kind of negotiation between the server and the client, and then the client can make requests to remote servers using HTTP Signature and a key it controls.
@evan @benpate @steve @mariusor @smallcircles my understanding of proxyUrl is that it's just fetching a remote object, but without forwarding authorization
For many cases you want to forward the request as the authenticated user to the remote server, not doing the request anonymously
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@evan @benpate @steve @mariusor @smallcircles my understanding of proxyUrl is that it's just fetching a remote object, but without forwarding authorization
For many cases you want to forward the request as the authenticated user to the remote server, not doing the request anonymously
@thisismissem it's not explicitly saying to forward authorization, but to me that's implied from "require authentication":
proxyUrl: Endpoint URI so this actor's clients may access remote ActivityStreams objects which require authentication to access
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@thisismissem it's not explicitly saying to forward authorization, but to me that's implied from "require authentication":
proxyUrl: Endpoint URI so this actor's clients may access remote ActivityStreams objects which require authentication to access
@mariusor I have implemented it requiring OAuth on one side and using HTTP Signature on the other. I think you need to use the user's authorization for private content or to respect personal blocks. It sucks for caching but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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@mariusor I have implemented it requiring OAuth on one side and using HTTP Signature on the other. I think you need to use the user's authorization for private content or to respect personal blocks. It sucks for caching but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@evan yes, that's how I did it too, only in my case the private key of the actor that is authorized by OAuth2 token is used to generate the signature for the proxy fetch. This makes it that servers that implement object ACLs based on the recipients list (which GoActivityPub servers are) are not serving 403s for fetches.
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@mariusor I have implemented it requiring OAuth on one side and using HTTP Signature on the other. I think you need to use the user's authorization for private content or to respect personal blocks. It sucks for caching but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, this is how I'd expect it to work (with the possible addition of *also* allowing cookie auth on the client side)
But yeah. Locally authenticated user from my client -> my server, then HTTP signature from my server -> your server
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Yeah, this is how I'd expect it to work (with the possible addition of *also* allowing cookie auth on the client side)
But yeah. Locally authenticated user from my client -> my server, then HTTP signature from my server -> your server
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@smallcircles @steve @mariusor
I think in particular the terms "publisher" and "consumer" from AS2 and "client" and "server" from AP don't always map cleanly, especially with HTTP POST requests.
When a client delivers an activity to the actor's outbox, the client is the publisher of that activity, and the server is the consumer.
Same when a sending server (publisher) delivers an activity to a receiving server (consumer).
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@mariusor I have implemented it requiring OAuth on one side and using HTTP Signature on the other. I think you need to use the user's authorization for private content or to respect personal blocks. It sucks for caching but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@evan @mariusor @benpate @steve @smallcircles yeah, it's the only way to do it.
But this infrastructure actually is what enables things like the AT Protocol "proxy through my PDS to the bluesky app view" or "proxy through my PDS to a custom feed generator" functionality.
That's how that all works.
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