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Tent Server-Server Communication Protocol
This document describes the protocol that Tent servers use to communicate with each other.
Basics
Every Tent user is represented by a server. Servers establish and maintain relationships and exchange content between users.
Applications send new content to servers and receive content from the server.
Servers should always be online and be accessible over HTTPS.
Server Discovery
Users and applications discover Tent servers in one of two ways: HTTP Link Headers and HTML link tags. Users can provide multiple links to access their Tent server. Multiple links are usually provided in case a particular address becomes unavailble. When multiple links are listed, they should be listed in order of preference from most preferred to least preferred, and contact attempted in the same order.
HTTP Link Header
The HTTP header allows discovery of Tent servers by performing a HEAD request
instead of retrieving the entire page and parsing for the link tag. It should be
added to all responses associated with the Tent entity. Other pages associated with the user may also serve the same header.
Link: <https://tent.titanous.com/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile"
or
Link: <https://tent.titanous.com/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile",
<https://titanous.tent.is/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile",
<https://tent.jonathan.cloudmir.com/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile"
HTML link tag
The link tag should be placed in the head tag of all HTML pages associated
with the Tent entity.
<link href="https://tent.titanous.com/profile" rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile" />
Follow an entity
To follow a user, send a POST request with acceptable licenses, post types, and views. Accepted requests will respond 200 OK and provide authentication credentials
POST /followers
{create_follower example}
Authentication
All requests should be made using SSL.
Authentication is required to access resources that are not marked as public.
Tent uses MAC Access Authentication for all requests.
All requests must be signed using MAC, and all notifications from the server are signed as well.
Get Current Following
Some details are available on who is following whom. A server can request information about a specific following, including your own current details, as specified below. Only your apps and the follower herself can see the specific details of their following.
GET /followers/:id
{get_follower example}
Edit Following
When a user wants to change the licenses, views, or post types she receives, she makes a PUT request.
PUT /followers/:id
{update_follower example}
Stop Following
If one user wants to stop following another, a DELETE request will end their relationship.
DELETE /followers/:id
{delete_follower example}
Fetch Posts
Following is not the only way to get posts or other content from a user. Anyone can request posts from another user with a GET request. If the requesting user is not authenticated, only public posts will be available.
GET /posts
There are a number of parameters available to limit the scope of the request.
{follower_get_posts example}
GET /posts/:id
It is also possible to retrieve a single post by that post's id. This is useful in retrieving reposted content and
{follower_get_post example}
Notifications
New content is sent as a POST request to /posts and
authenticated using the negotiated credentials.