Internet-Draft | The Mercure Protocol | July 2020 |
Dunglas | Expires 9 January 2021 | [Page] |
Mercure is a protocol enabling the pushing of data updates to web browsers and other HTTP clients in a fast, reliable and battery-efficient way. It is especially useful for publishing real-time updates of resources served through web APIs to web and mobile apps.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 9 January 2021.¶
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.¶
The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].¶
Topic: The unit to which one can subscribe to changes. The topic SHOULD be identified by an IRI [RFC3987]. Using an HTTPS [RFC7230] or HTTP [RFC7230] URI [RFC3986] is RECOMMENDED.¶
Update: The message containing the updated version of the topic. An update can be marked as private, consequently, it must be dispatched only to subscribers allowed to receive it.¶
Topic selector: An expression matching one or several topics.¶
Publisher: An owner of a topic. Notifies the hub when the topic feed has been updated. As in almost all pubsub systems, the publisher is unaware of the subscribers, if any. Other pubsub systems might call the publisher the "source". Typically a website or a web API, but can also be a web browser.¶
Subscriber: A client application that subscribes to real-time updates of topics using topic selectors. Typically a web or a mobile application, but can also be a server.¶
Subscription: A topic selector used by a subscriber to receive updates. A single subscriber can have several subscriptions, when it provides several topic selectors.¶
Hub: A server that handles subscription requests and distributes the content to subscribers when the corresponding topics have been updated. Any hub MAY implement its own policies on who can use it.¶
The discovery mechanism aims at identifying at least 2 URLs.¶
The URL of one or more hubs designated by the publisher.¶
The canonical URL for the topic to which subscribers are expected to use for subscriptions.¶
The URL of the hub MUST be the "well-known" [RFC5785] fixed path /.well-known/mercure
.¶
If the publisher is a server, it SHOULD advertise the URL of one or more hubs to the subscriber, allowing it to receive live updates when topics are updated. If more than one hub URL is specified, the publisher MUST notifies each hub, so the subscriber MAY subscribe to one or more of them.¶
Note: Publishers may wish to advertise and publish to more than one hub for fault tolerance and redundancy. If one hub fails to propagate an update to the document, then using multiple independent hub is a way to increase the likelihood of delivery to subscribers. As such, subscribers may subscribe to one or more of the advertised hubs.¶
The publisher SHOULD include at least one Link Header [RFC5988] with rel=mercure
(a hub link
header). The target URL of these links MUST be a hub implementing the Mercure protocol.¶
The publisher MAY provide the following target attributes in the Link Headers:¶
last-event-id
: the identifier of the last event dispatched by the publisher at the time of
the generation of this resource. If provided, it MUST be passed to the hub through a query
parameter called Last-Event-ID
and will be used to ensure that possible updates having been
made between the resource generation by the server and the connection to the hub are not lost.
See Section 7.¶
content-type
: the content type of the updates that will be pushed by the hub. If omitted,
the subscriber MUST assume that the content type will be the same as that of the original
resource. Setting the content-type
attribute is especially useful to hint that partial updates
will be pushed, using formats such as JSON Patch [RFC6902] or JSON Merge Patch [RFC7386].¶
key-set
: the URL of the key set to use to decrypt updates, encoded in the JWK set format
(JSON Web Key Set) [RFC7517]. See Section 10. As this key set will contain a secret
key, the publisher must ensure that only the subscriber can access to this URL. To do so, the
authorization mechanism (see Section 6) can be reused.¶
All these attributes are optional.¶
The publisher MAY also include one Link Header [RFC5988] with rel=self
(the self link
header). It SHOULD contain the canonical URL for the topic to which subscribers are expected
to use for subscriptions. If the Link with rel=self
is omitted, the current URL of the resource
MUST be used as a fallback.¶
Minimal example:¶
GET /books/foo HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" {"@id": "/books/foo", "foo": "bar"}¶
Links embedded in HTML or XML documents as defined in the WebSub recommendation [W3C.REC-websub-20180123] MAY also be supported by subscribers. If both a header and an embedded link are provided, the header MUST be preferred.¶
For practical purposes, it is important that the rel=self
URL only offers a single representation.
As the hub has no way of knowing what Media Type ([RFC6838]) or language may have been requested
by the subscriber upon discovery, it would not be able to deliver the content using the appropriate
representation of the document.¶
It is, however, possible to perform content negotiation by returning an appropriate rel=self
URL according to the HTTP headers used in the initial discovery request. For example, a request
to /books/foo
with an Accept
header containing application/ld+json
could return a rel=self
value of /books/foo.jsonld
.¶
The example below illustrates how a topic URL can return different Link
headers depending on the
Accept
header that was sent.¶
GET /books/foo HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/ld+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Link: </books/foo.jsonld>; rel="self" Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" {"@id": "/books/foo", "foo": "bar"}¶
GET /books/foo HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: text/html HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: text/html Link: </books/foo.html>; rel="self" Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" <!doctype html> <title>foo: bar</title>¶
Similarly, the technique can also be used to return a different rel=self
URL depending on the
language requested by the Accept-Language
header.¶
GET /books/foo HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept-Language: fr-FR HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Content-Language: fr-FR Link: </books/foo-fr-FR.jsonld>; rel="self" Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" {"@id": "/books/foo", "foo": "bar", "@context": {"@language": "fr-FR"}}¶
A topic selector is an expression intended to be matched by one or several topics. A topic selector can also be used to match other topic selectors for authorization purposes. See Section 6.¶
A topic selector can be any string including URI Templates [RFC6570] and the reserved string *
that matches all topics. It is RECOMMENDED to use URI Templates or the reserved string *
as
topic selectors.¶
Note: URLs and IRIs are valid URI templates.¶
To determine if a string matches a selector, the following steps must be followed:¶
If the topic selector is *
then the string matches the selector.¶
If the topic selector and the string are exactly the same, the string matches the selector. This characteristic allows to compare a URI Template with another one.¶
If the topic selector is a valid URI Template, and that the string matches this URI Template, the string matches the selector.¶
Otherwise the string does not match the selector.¶
The subscriber subscribes to a URL exposed by a hub to receive updates from one or many topics.
To subscribe to updates, the client opens an HTTPS connection following the Server-Sent Events
specification [W3C.REC-eventsource-20150203] to the hub's subscription URL advertised by the
publisher. The GET
HTTP method must be used. The connection SHOULD use HTTP version 2 or
superior to leverage multiplexing and other performance-oriented related features provided by these
versions.¶
The subscriber specifies the list of topics to get updates from by using one or several query
parameters named topic
. The topic
query parameters MUST contain topic selectors. See
Section 3.¶
The protocol doesn't specify the maximum number of topic
parameters that can be sent, but the hub
MAY apply an arbitrary limit. A subscription is created for every provided topic
parameter.
See Section 8.1.¶
The EventSource JavaScript interface MAY be used to establish the connection. Any other appropriate mechanism including, but not limited to, readable streams [W3C.NOTE-streams-api-20161129] and XMLHttpRequest (used by popular polyfills) MAY also be used.¶
The hub sends to the subscriber updates for topics matching the provided topic selectors.¶
If an update is marked as private
, the hub MUST NOT dispatch it to subscribers not authorized
to receive it. See Section 6.¶
The hub MUST send these updates as text/event-stream
compliant events
[!@W3C.REC-eventsource-20150203].¶
The data
property MUST contain the new version of the topic. It can be the full resource, or a
partial update by using formats such as JSON Patch [RFC6902] or JSON Merge Patch [RFC7386].¶
All other properties defined in the Server-Sent Events specification MAY be used and MUST be supported by hubs.¶
The resource SHOULD be represented in a format with hypermedia capabilities such as JSON-LD [W3C.REC-json-ld-20140116], Atom [RFC4287], XML [W3C.REC-xml-20081126] or HTML [W3C.REC-html52-20171214].¶
Web Linking [RFC5988] SHOULD be used to indicate the IRI of the resource sent in the event.
When using Atom, XML or HTML as the serialization format for the resource, the document SHOULD
contain a link
element with a self
relation containing the IRI of the resource. When using
JSON-LD, the document SHOULD contain an @id
property containing the IRI of the resource.¶
Example:¶
// The subscriber subscribes to updates // for the https://example.com/foo topic, the bar topic, // and to any topic matching https://example.com/books/{name} const url = new URL('https://example.com/.well-known/mercure'); url.searchParams.append('topic', 'https://example.com/foo'); url.searchParams.append('topic', 'bar'); url.searchParams.append('topic', 'https://example.com/bar/{id}'); const eventSource = new EventSource(url); // The callback will be called every time an update is published eventSource.onmessage = function ({data}) { console.log(data); };¶
The hub MAY require subscribers and publishers to be authenticated, and MAY apply extra authorization rules not defined in this specification.¶
The publisher sends updates by issuing POST
HTTPS requests on the hub URL. When it receives an
update, the hub dispatches it to subscribers using the established server-sent events connections.¶
The hub MAY also dispatch this update using other protocols such as WebSub [W3C.REC-websub-20180123] or ActivityPub [W3C.REC-activitypub-20180123].¶
An application CAN send events directly to subscribers without using an external hub server, if it is able to do so. In this case, it MAY NOT implement the endpoint to publish updates.¶
The request MUST be encoded using the application/x-www-form-urlencoded
format
[W3C.REC-html52-20171214] and contains the following name-value tuples:¶
topic
: The identifiers of the updated topic. It is RECOMMENDED to use an IRI as
identifier. If this name is present several times, the first occurrence is considered to be the
canonical IRI of the topic, and other ones are considered to be alternate IRIs. The hub MUST
dispatch this update to subscribers that are subscribed to both canonical or alternate IRIs.¶
data
(optional): the content of the new version of this topic.¶
private
(optional): if this name is set, the update MUST NOT be dispatched to subscribers
not authorized to receive it. See Section 6. It is recommended to set the value to on
but it CAN contain any value including an empty string.¶
id
(optional): the topic's revision identifier: it will be used as the SSE's id
property.
The provided id MUST NOT start with the #
character. The provided id SHOULD be a valid
IRI. If omitted, the hub MUST generate a valid IRI [RFC3987]. An UUID [RFC4122] or a
DID MAY be used. Alternatively the hub MAY generate a
relative URI composed of a fragment (starting with #
). This is convenient to return an offset
or a sequence that is unique for this hub. Even if provided, the hub MAY ignore the id
provided by the client and generate its own id.¶
type
(optional): the SSE's event
property (a specific event type).¶
retry
(optional): the SSE's retry
property (the reconnection time).¶
In the event of success, the HTTP response's body MUST be the id
associated to this update
generated by the hub and a success HTTP status code MUST be returned. The publisher MUST be
authorized to publish updates. See Section 6.¶
Example:¶
POST /.well-known/mercure HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: Bearer [snip] topic=https://example.com/foo&data=the%20content HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: text/plain urn:uuid:e1ee88e2-532a-4d6f-ba70-f0f8bd584022¶
The protocol allows to reconciliate states after a reconnection. It can also be used to implement an Event store.¶
To allow re-establishment in case of connection lost, events dispatched by the hub MUST include
an id
property. The value contained in this id
property SHOULD be an IRI [RFC3987]. An
UUID [RFC4122] or a DID MAY be used.¶
According to the server-sent events specification, in case of connection lost the subscriber will try to automatically re-connect. During the re-connection, the subscriber MUST send the last received event id in a Last-Event-ID HTTP header.¶
In order to fetch any update dispatched between the initial resource generation by the publisher and
the connection to the hub, the subscriber MUST send the event id provided during the discovery
as a Last-Event-ID
header or query parameter. See Section 2.¶
EventSource
implementations may not allow to set HTTP headers during the first connection (before
a reconnection) and implementations in web browsers don't allow to set it.¶
To work around this problem, the hub MUST also allow to pass the last event id in a query
parameter named Last-Event-ID
.¶
If both the Last-Event-ID
HTTP header and the query parameter are present, the HTTP header
MUST take precedence.¶
If the Last-Event-ID
HTTP header or query parameter exists, the hub SHOULD send all events
published following the one bearing this identifier to the subscriber.¶
The reserved value earliest
can be used to hint the hub to send all updates it has for the
subscribed topics. According to its own policy, the hub MAY or MAY NOT fulfil this request.¶
The hub MAY discard some events for operational reasons. When the request contains a
Last-Event-ID
HTTP header or query parameter the hub MUST set a Last-Event-ID
header on
the HTTP response. The value of the Last-Event-ID
response header MUST be the id of the event
preceding the first one sent to the subscriber, or the reserved value earliest
if there is no
preceding event (it happens when the hub history is empty, when the subscriber requests the earliest
event or when the subscriber requests an event that doesn't exist).¶
The subscriber SHOULD NOT assume that no events will be lost (it may happen, for example if the hub stores only a limited number of events in its history). In some cases (for instance when sending partial updates in the JSON Patch [RFC6902] format, or when using the hub as an event store), updates lost can cause data lost.¶
To detect if a data lost ocurred, the subscriber CAN compare the value of the Last-Event-ID
response HTTP header with the Last-Event-ID
it requested. In case of data lost, the subscriber
SHOULD re-fetch the original topic.¶
Note: Native EventSource
implementations don't give access to headers associated with the HTTP
response, however polyfills and server-sent events clients in most programming languages allow it.¶
The hub CAN also specify the reconnection time using the retry
key, as specified in the
server-sent events format.¶
Mercure provides a mechanism to track active subscriptions. If the hub support this optional set of features, updates will be published when a subscription is created, or terminated, and a web API exposes the list of active subscriptions.¶
Variables are templated and expanded in accordance with [RFC6570].¶
If the hub supports the active subscriptions feature, it MUST publish an update when a subscription is created or terminated. If this feature is implemented by the hub, an update MUST be dispatched every time a subscription is created or terminated.¶
The topic of these updates MUST be an expansion of
/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/{topic}/{subscriber}
. {topic}
is the topic selector used for
this subscription and {subscriber}
is an unique identifier for the subscriber.¶
Note: Because it is recommended to use URI Templates and IRIs for the {topic}
and {subscriber}
variables, values will usually contain the :
, /
, {
and }
characters. Per [RFC6570], these
characters are reserved. They MUST be percent encoded during the expansion process.¶
If a subscriber has several subscriptions, it SHOULD be identified by the same
identifier. {subscriber}
SHOULD be an IRI [RFC3987]. An UUID [RFC4122] or a
DID MAY be used.¶
The content of the update MUST be a JSON-LD [W3C.REC-json-ld-20140116] document containing at least the following properties:¶
@context
: the fixed value https://mercure.rocks/
. @context
can be omitted if already
defined in a parent node. See Section 9.¶
id
: the identifier of this update, it MUST be the same value as the subscription update's
topic¶
type
: the fixed value Subscription
¶
topic
: the topic selector used of this subscription¶
subscriber
: the topic identifier of the subscriber. It SHOULD be an IRI.¶
active
: true
when the subscription is active, and false
when it is terminated¶
payload
(optional): the content of mercure.payload
in the subscriber's JWS (see
Section 6)¶
The JSON-LD document MAY contain other properties.¶
In order to only allow authorized subscribers to receive subscription events, the subscription
update MUST be marked as private
.¶
Example:¶
{ "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Abb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:bb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bar"} }¶
If the hub supports subscription events (see Section 8.1), it SHOULD also expose active subscriptions through a web API.¶
For instance, subscribers interested in maintaining a list of active subscriptions can call the web API to retrieve them, and then use subscription events (see Section 8.1) to keep it up to date.¶
The web API MUST expose endpoints following these patterns:¶
/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions
: the collection of subscriptions¶
/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/{topic}
: the collection of subscriptions for the given
topic selector¶
/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/{topic}/{subscriber}
: a specific subscription¶
To access to the URLs exposed by the web API, clients MUST be authorized according to the rules
defined in Section 6. The requested URL MUST match at least one of the topic selectors
provided in the mercure.subscribe
key of the JWS.¶
The web API MUST set the Content-Type
HTTP header to application/ld+json
.¶
URLs returning a single subscription (following the pattern
/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/{topic}/{subscriber}
) MUST expose the same JSON-LD document
as described in Section 8.1. If the requested subscription does not exist, a 404
status
code MUST be returned.¶
If the requested subscription isn't active anymore, the hub can either return the JSON-LD document
with the active
property set to false
or return a 404
status code. Accordingly, collection
endpoints CAN return terminated connections with the active
property set to false
or omit
them.¶
Collection endpoints MUST return JSON-LD documents containing at least the following properties:¶
@context
: the fixed value https://mercure.rocks/
. @context
can be omitted if already
defined in a parent node. See Section 9.¶
id
: the URL used to retrieve the document¶
type
: the fixed value Subscriptions
¶
subscriptions
: an array of subscription documents as described in Section 8.1¶
In addition, all endpoints MUST set the lastEventID
property at the root of the returned
JSON-LD document:¶
lastEventID
: the identifier of the last event dispatched by the hub at the time of this
request (see Section 7). The value MUST be earliest
if no events have been
dispatched yet. The value of this property SHOULD be passed back to the hub when subscribing
to subscription events to prevent data loss.¶
As data returned by this web API is volatile, clients SHOULD validate that a response coming from cache is still valid before using it.¶
Examples:¶
GET /.well-known/mercure/subscriptions HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" ETag: urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb Cache-control: must-revalidate { "@context": "https://mercure.rocks/", "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions", "type": "Subscriptions", "lastEventID": "urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb", "subscriptions": [ { "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Abb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:bb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bar"} }, { "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fa-topic/urn%3Auuid%3A1e0cba4c-4bcd-44f0-ae8a-7b76f7ef1280", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/a-topic", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:1e0cba4c-4bcd-44f0-ae8a-7b76f7ef1280", "active": true, "payload": {"baz": "bat"} }, { "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Aa6c49794-5f74-4723-999c-3a7e33e51d49", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:a6c49794-5f74-4723-999c-3a7e33e51d49", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bap"} } ] }¶
GET /.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" ETag: urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb Cache-control: must-revalidate { "@context": "https://mercure.rocks/", "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D", "type": "Subscriptions", "lastEventID": "urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb", "subscriptions": [ { "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Abb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:bb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bar"} }, { "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Aa6c49794-5f74-4723-999c-3a7e33e51d49", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:a6c49794-5f74-4723-999c-3a7e33e51d49", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bap"} } ] }¶
GET /.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Abb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-type: application/ld+json Link: <https://example.com/.well-known/mercure>; rel="mercure" ETag: urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb Cache-control: must-revalidate { "@context": "https://mercure.rocks/", "id": "/.well-known/mercure/subscriptions/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F%7Bselector%7D/urn%3Auuid%3Abb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "type": "Subscription", "topic": "https://example.com/{selector}", "subscriber": "urn:uuid:bb3de268-05b0-4c65-b44e-8f9acefc29d6", "active": true, "payload": {"foo": "bar"}, "lastEventID": "urn:uuid:5e94c686-2c0b-4f9b-958c-92ccc3bbb4eb" }¶
The JSON-LD context available at https://mercure.rocks
is the following:¶
{ "@context": { "@vocab": "_:", "mercure": "https://mercure.rocks/", "id": "@id", "type": "@type", "Subscription": "mercure:Subscription", "Subscriptions": "mercure:Subscriptions", "subscriptions": "mercure:subscriptions", "topic": "mercure:topic", "subscriber": "mercure:subscriber", "active": "mercure:active", "payload": "mercure:payload", "lastEventID": "mercure:lastEventID" }¶
Using HTTPS does not prevent the hub from accessing the update's content. Depending of the intended privacy of information contained in the update, it MAY be necessary to prevent eavesdropping by the hub.¶
To make sure that the message content can not be read by the hub, the publisher MAY encrypt the
message before sending it to the hub. The publisher SHOULD use JSON Web Encryption [RFC7516]
to encrypt the update content. The publisher MAY provide the URL pointing to the relevant
encryption key(s) in the key-set
attribute of the Link
HTTP header during the discovery. See
Section 2. The key-set
attribute MUST link to a key encoded using the JSON Web Key Set
[RFC7517] format. Any other out-of-band mechanism MAY be used instead to share the key between
the publisher and the subscriber.¶
Update encryption is considered a best practice to prevent mass surveillance. This is especially relevant if the hub is managed by an external provider.¶
A new "well-known" URI as described in Section 2 has been registered in the "Well-Known URIs" registry as described below:¶
A new "Link Relation Type" as described in Section 2 has been registered in the "Link Relation Type" registry with the following entry:¶
The confidentiality of the secret key(s) used to generate the JWSs is a primary concern. The secret key(s) MUST be stored securely. They MUST be revoked immediately in the event of compromission.¶
Possessing valid JWSs allows any client to subscribe, or to publish to the hub. Their confidentiality MUST therefore be ensured. To do so, JWSs MUST only be transmitted over secure connections.¶
Also, when the client is a web browser, the JWS SHOULD not be made accessible
to JavaScript scripts for resilience against Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
attacks. It's the main reason why, when the client
is a web browser, using HttpOnly
cookies as the authorization mechanism SHOULD always be
preferred.¶
In the event of compromission, revoking JWSs before their expiration is often difficult. To that end, using short-lived tokens is strongly RECOMMENDED.¶
The publish endpoint of the hub may be targeted by Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks when the cookie-based authorization mechanism is used. Therefore, implementations supporting this mechanism MUST mitigate such attacks.¶
The first prevention method to implement is to set the mercureAuthorization
cookie's SameSite
attribute. However, some web browsers still not support this
attribute and will remain vulnerable.
Additionally, hub implementations SHOULD use the Origin
and Referer
HTTP headers set by web
browsers to verify that the source origin matches the target origin. If none of these headers are
available, the hub SHOULD discard the request.¶
CSRF prevention techniques, including those previously mentioned, are described in depth in OWASP's Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Prevention Cheat Sheet.¶
[RFC Editor Note: Please remove this entire seciton prior to publication as an RFC.]¶
This section records the status of known implementations of the protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in [RFC6982]. The description of implementations in this section is intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers are advised to note that other implementations may exist. According to RFC 6982, "this will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit."¶
Organization responsible for the implementation:¶
Dunglas Services SAS Les-Tilleuls.coop¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Mercure.rocks, available at https://mercure.rocks¶
Brief Description:¶
This is the reference implementation of the Mercure hub. It is written in Go and is optimized for performance.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Widely used.¶
Coverage:¶
All the features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation follows the latest draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the GNU Affero Public License version 3 or later.¶
Implementation Experience:¶
Used in production.¶
Contact Information:¶
Kévin Dunglas, kevin+mercure@dunglas.fr https://mercure.rocks¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with all major browsers and server-side tools.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Ilshidur/node-mercure, https://github.com/Ilshidur/node-mercure¶
Brief Description:¶
Hub and Publisher implemented in Node.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Beta, not suitable for production.¶
Coverage:¶
All the features of the protocol except the subscription events.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the GNU Public License version 3 or later.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/Ilshidur/node-mercure¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with all major browsers and server-side tools.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Symfony Mercure Component, available at https://symfony.com/doc/current/components/mercure.html¶
Brief Description:¶
This a publisher library written in PHP. It also provides support for Mercure in the Symfony web framework.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Widely used.¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation follows the latest draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the MIT license.¶
Implementation Experience:¶
Used in production.¶
Contact Information:¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the Mercure.rocks Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
API Platform, available at https://api-platform.com/docs/core/mercure/¶
Brief Description:¶
The API Platform framework, allows to create async APIs implementing the Mercure protocol and to generate clients for these APIs.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Widely used.¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher and consumer features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation follows the latest draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the MIT license.¶
Implementation Experience:¶
Used in production.¶
Contact Information:¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Laravel Mercure Broadcaster, available at https://github.com/mvanduijker/laravel-mercure-broadcaster¶
Brief Description:¶
Laravel broadcaster for Mercure. Use the Mercure protocol as transport for Laravel Broadcast.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Production¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft. An open Pull Request adds support for the latest version of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the MIT license.¶
Implementation Experience:¶
Used in production.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/mvanduijker/laravel-mercure-broadcaster¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
dartmercure, available at https://github.com/wallforfry/dartmercure¶
Brief Description:¶
Publisher and Subscriber library for Dart / Flutter.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Stable¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher and subscriber features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation follows the latest draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/wallforfry/dart_mercure¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
pymercure, available at https://github.com/vitorluis/python-mercure¶
Brief Description:¶
Publisher and Subscriber library for Python.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Alpha¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher and subscriber features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft. An open Pull Request adds support for the latest version of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/vitorluis/python-mercure¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Amphp Mercure Publisher, available at https://github.com/eislambey/amp-mercure-publisher¶
Brief Description:¶
Async Mercure publisher based on Amphp.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Stable¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft. An open Pull Request adds support for the latest version of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the MIT license.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/eislambey/amp-mercure-publisher¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Java Library for Mercure, available at https://github.com/vitorluis/java-mercure¶
Brief Description:¶
Java library to publish messages to a Mercure Hub!¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Alpha¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft. An open Pull Request adds support for the latest version of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the MIT license.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/vitorluis/java-mercure¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
Yii 2 Mercure behavior, available at https://github.com/bizley/mercure-behavior¶
Brief Description:¶
Yii 2 behavior to automatically publish updates to a Mercure hub.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Stable¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the revision 5 of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the Apache License 2.0.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/bizley/mercure-behavior¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Implementation Name and Details:¶
GitHub Action for Mercure, available at https://github.com/marketplace/actions/github-action-for-mercure¶
Brief Description:¶
Send a Mercure update when a GitHub event occurs.¶
Level of Maturity:¶
Stable¶
Coverage:¶
All the publisher features of the protocol.¶
Version compatibility:¶
The implementation currently follows the latest version of the draft.¶
Licensing:¶
All code is covered under the GNU Public License version 3 or later.¶
Contact Information:¶
https://github.com/Ilshidur/action-mercure¶
Interoperability:¶
Reported compatible with the reference implementation of the Mercure Hub.¶
Other implementations can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/topics/mercure¶
Parts of this specification, especially Section 2 have been adapted from the WebSub recommendation [W3C.REC-websub-20180123]. The editor wish to thanks all the authors of this specification.¶