Mastodon: Account aliases.

[ticki]

The database should have a redirection field, which effectively redirects the trafic to the aliased account. For example, I have [email protected]. Say I wanted to have [email protected] redirecting to [email protected]. It allows partial migration with relatively simple change.

Related to https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/177

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• [x] I searched or browsed the repo’s other issues to ensure this is not a duplicate.
• [ ] This bug happens on a tagged release and not on master (If you're a user, don't worry about this).

[kerim]

Yes please! One way Mastodon was explained to me was that accounts on different instances are like email addresses, but in email I can set up aliases so that even if I send an email from a Gmail address, it appears to come from my work address. I see a lot of smaller instances popping up as kinds of "Facebook Groups" around different topics, but having to create a new identity for each group creates problems since I can't sync the follows (or followers) from each group, and I get separate notifications for conversations under each account. This could get tiresome very fast, but having the ability to create a local account with an alias would solve all of that - with all my social connections and replies going back to my primary account. Of course, for the purpose of moderation there should be a way to see if people are using an alias (just as one can do if one looks at email headers), but this needn't be obvious to the casual user.

[sethlsanders]

I agree that the alias feature would be a big factor in making Mastodon useful and attractive for me.

[glintinspace]

This would help keep people from harassing others by impersonating them.

[PubliqPhirm]

This would also be a good way to help implement #2668 (hosting several domains of instances from the same backend instance)

[duck57]

If you control all those domains, would CNAMES help or am I misunderstanding the issue?

[roipoussiere]

Instead I think it could be done using DNS entries.

If I understand well, 2 entries should be necessary:

• A CNAME entry, to redirect the domain;
• a TXT entry, containing 2 key/value pair:
  
  
  
  • the username in the target instance;
  
  
  • a verification token, to avoid identity usurpation.
  
  

These two values could be generated in the user configuration page (as GitLab does with custom-domain pages).

[remram44]

@roipoussiere This means that Mastodon needs access to the DNS zone, vastly complicating installation, and requiring a lot of code to be written to support the multitude of DNS providers, each with their own DNS updating API.

It would also mean that any account lookup needs to first do a DNS query before doing the current dance (webfinger, ActivityPub), adding latency.

It would also vastly depart from the current standardized protocols (this is nowhere in the ActivityPub spec).

[roipoussiere]

and requiring a lot of code to be written to support the multitude of DNS providers, each with their own DNS updating API.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge in this field, but why it's necessary to use DNS updating APIs?

[remram44]

When a user sets the alias on the Mastodon app, Mastodon would need to create the TXT entry you describe.

[roipoussiere]

Not necessary: the UI could just provide the DNS entries and the user manually adds them in the DNS provider interface.

[remram44]

The instance admin might be able to create DNS entry for his instance's domain, but that is certainly not the case for users.

[roipoussiere]

GitLab works like that, it displays DNS entries to the user, not to the GitLab instance admin.

[remram44]

GitLab doesn't need complicated TXT records, so they just have a wildcard *.gitlab.io that points to their server, and they never need to update it. This is very different from the scheme you described.

[galaxor]

I have another use-case for this feature, which could not be solved by DNS.

I have a server of my own, where I host my email. So my email address is [email protected]. I also have a website up at myserver.example.com. I know someone else who runs a mastodon server, theirserver.mastodon.example.com. I would like to join their server so I don't have to run my own. But if I do that, then I get a handle like [email protected]. Now, what if my friend stops running that instance? What if I decide to run my own? All my friends know me as [email protected], and I'm locked in.

Now, I could rectify this situation by hand-writing a webfinger file and hosting it at https://myserver.example.com/.well-known/[email protected]

It could list all the appropriate aliases, profile-page, updates-from, salmon addresses, etc for theirserver.mastodon.example.com. Problem solved, right??

Sort of: I can tell people my webfinger address as [email protected] (same as my email address -- appropriate). However, if they actually subscribe to me, all my messages will be listed as coming from [email protected]. I need a way to inform theirserver.mastodon.example.com that my canonical address is [email protected].

In email, this is accomplished by simply changing the From: header. Even gmail has a UI for that, so you can use gmail but have your address that everybody sees be [email protected].

Mastodon should have a thing like that!

[rkingett]

Yes! It would also save having to create a new name and password for each and every instance I want to join. I do find the moving accounts feature very helpful though.