Link relationship types for authentication
draft-pot-authentication-link-01

Abstract

This specification defines a set of relationships that may be used to indicate where a user may authenticate, log out, register a new account or find out who is currently authenticated.

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1. Introduction

[RFC8288] defines a framework and registry for Link Relationships types. This specification defines a set of new relationship types to aid clients in discovering endpoints for authentication and registration: authenticate, authenticated-as, logout and register-user.

1.1. Usage examples

1.1.1. Browsers

Many websites already provide these features. If these links are annotated with a standard relationship type, it might allow browser extensions to automatically discover these and present them in new ways. It could for example show a browser-level logout button.

Link relationships such as these could appear on any page where Sign in, Register, Log in or Log out features exist.

1.1.2. Web services

Many webservices provide a resource to discover more information about the authenticated entity. Creating standard link relationships might allow a generic client to discover information about the currently logged in user.

Similarly, an authenticate link could allow a generic client to find an OAuth2 Authorization endpoint.

This link relationship could appear on any API endpoint where this might be relevant, or it might just show up on central endpoint discovery document.

2. authenticate

The authenticate can be used to link to a resource that hosts a page where a user can authenticate itself for the current resource.

For example, this link might refer to a HTML login page.

Example:

<a href="/login" rel="authenticate">Login</a>

3. authenticated-as

The authenticated-as link refers to a resource that describes the effective authenticated user for a HTTP response.

Following this link might allow a client to answer the question ‘who am I?’. This might link to a user profile page, or it might link to an API that returns a JSON response with user information.

Example:

Link: <https://api.example.org/users/123-abc>; rel="authenticated-as"

4. logout

The logout refers to a resource where an authenticated user might end their session.

In a browser this might clear cookies, or in the case of OAuth2 it could revoke any active authentication tokens.

5. register-user

The register-user Link Relation refers to a resource where a user might sign up for a service for the context URI.

The linked resource might contain a HTML registration form, or otherwise instructions that allow a client to find out how to sign up for the service.

6. IANA considerations

This document defines authenticate, authenticated-as, logout and register-user link relation types and adds them to the “Link Relations” registry: