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solid-signup

WebID signup application for Solid servers.

App configuration

In order to use the signup app, you must first configure it to point to a server on which the accounts will be created. You can specify the server by edititing the configuration area in app.js. For example, the following constants can be set there:

var DOMAIN = 'https://databox.me';
var ACCOUNT_ENDPOINT = ',system/newAccount';
var CERT_ENDPOINT = ',system/newCert';

The value of DOMAIN sets the base URL for the new accounts, where new accounts will be subdomains -- i.e. https://alice.databox.me.

The value of DOMAIN can also be overridden without editing the app.js file, by adding a URL query parameter called domain when loading the app. For example, to override the default domain of the signup app and point to https://example.org, a user can click on the following link:

https://solid.github.io/solid-signup/?domain=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org

The ACCOUNT_ENDPOINT and CERT_ENDPOINT values will be appended to the final URI of the user's new account. If your server does not use ACCOUNT_ENDPOINT or CERT_ENDPOINT paths, please set them to an empty value.

App workflow

  1. If the user wants to use alice to sign up, the app will check if the account https://alice.databox.me/ exists. It checks this by doing an HTTP GET on https://alice.databox.me/, using the value of DOMAIN to create the URL. If an HTTP 404 status is returned, the app will prompt the user to create that account.

  2. If the user proceeds with the account creation, an HTTP POST request will be sent to the account URL, while also appending the ACCOUNT_ENDPOINT value. In this case, the resulting URL will be https://alice.databox.me/,system/newAccount. The POST request will look like a regular form submission -- i.e. it will have the Content-Type header set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. The form will also send the following values:

    • email - used for recovery purposes
    • username [optional] - used to specifiy the account name (for servers that do not use sub-domains)

  3. Once the account is created, the user is given the option to add her name to her profile and also to upload a profile picture.

  4. Finally, the user will be able to obtain a client certificate, that will be bound to her WebID profile.