Node-solid-server: Give users a different path instead of subdomain

[pheyvaer]

Is it currently possible to give different users a different path instead of subdomain.
If you have two users Ash and Misty, and the server is at solid.example.org then their PODs are at ash.solid.example.org and misty.solid.example.org. Is it possible to get something like the following instead? solid.example.org/ash and solid.example.org./misty.

[mikeadams1]

@pheyvaer IMHO, This is a problem, but not really an NSS issue, I believe its a question you should post on the forum, or on chat, and as a note, I am against the idea in it's entirety. What your asking Solid to do is adopt the Facebook model. When you go to your Facebook home page it should look like this: https://Facebook.com/phayvaer however, in Solid, everyone has a subdomain. A more powerful link authority then a simple file on the domain. If solid expects users to put their most trusted property in a solid pod, then that person should need to have dominion over the entirety of the sub-domain it is secured within.

If it would not be to much trouble, could you give us a reason that you are asking the question in the first place, like a for instance?

[Ryuno-Ki]

Subdomains can make a lot of sense in web programming. Especially in a multi-tenant-like model like SoLiD's.

[jaxoncreed]

There is not anything in the solid spec that prohibits the use of alternative routing schemes. However, at the moment, NSS does not support that.

[melvincarvalho]

Is it possible to get something like the following instead? solid.example.org/ash and solid.example.org/misty

Yes. A WebID can live at any resource. You can even have two in one file

You would need to put the WebID files at both those resources, and them permission then accordingly. Not much difference from how you use your own file system

Do note that browsers have a bit of a quirky security model wrt sub domains aka origins. For example cookies are not shared over different origins but they are over different paths in the same origin

I think the model you suggest works best if ash and misty are friends / family. Are you asking if that process could be automated and put in as a configuration option? If so, it may have some security considerations.

If not, is it OK to close this issue?

[pheyvaer]

But can you use the Solid principles to edit the data of the WebID? Considering that the WebID is not hosted by a Solid POD.

[kjetilk]

But can you use the Solid principles to edit the data of the WebID? Considering that the WebID is not hosted by a Solid POD.

No, you couldn't do that, but other uses should be OK.

BTW; as a tangent to this: My old university has a server folk.uio.no where all users can put their homepages. My academic homepage is for example http://folk.uio.no/kjekje/ It just occurred to me that it would be a reasonable upgrade path for all university users to have that as a Solid RS.

The university would put a root acl on http://folk.uio.no/ that gave acl:Read to foaf:Agent, since that is what has been done there, and then users would opt in to having Solid by adding an acl to their own account giving themselves write access, and then they can go from there. The national acadmic SSO system, Feide, already supports OIDC, and should be the Solid IDP.

Back in the day, it used to be a lot of such academic servers around, perhaps it is an approach that could bring academia onto Solid quickly.

[pheyvaer]

Ok, but other files that are on the Solid POD are still under that subdomain, right?

The university use case is similar to what is happening at ours if I'm correct. So indeed might be a good approach to move to Solid!