diaspora_federation/docs/federation/magicsig.md

title
Magic Signatures

diaspora* uses the Salmon Magic Signatures to send signed messages to other servers.

This is only a summary of the important parts. See the Magic Signatures Specification for the full details.

Magic Envelope

Parameters

Parameter	Description
data	The [serialized][serialization] [entity][entities], base64url-encoded.
data_type	The MIME-type of the payload before encoding. This must be application/xml.
encoding	The encoding of the data. This must be base64url.
alg	The algorithm used for the signature. This must be RSA-SHA256.
sig	The base64url encoded signature.
key_id	The base64url encoded [diaspora* ID][diaspora-id] of the signer.

Signature

The signature base string is produced by concatenating the following substrings together, separated by periods (.):

1. The encoded data.
2. The base64url encoding of the data_type parameter, which is the literal string application/xml. The base64url-encoded string is YXBwbGljYXRpb24veG1s.
3. The base64url encoding of the encoding parameter, which is the literal string base64url. The base64url-encoded string is YmFzZTY0dXJs.
4. The base64url encoding of the alg parameter, which is the literal string RSA-SHA256. The base64url-encoded string is UlNBLVNIQTI1Ng==.

This is then signed with the private RSA key of the sender using the RSA-SHA256 algorithm and base64url-encoded.

If someone receives a Magic Envelope without a valid signature, it must be ignored.

XML Serialization

The Magic Envelope must be XML serialized.

Example

<me:env xmlns:me="http://salmon-protocol.org/ns/magic-env">
  <me:data type="application/xml">PHN0YXR1c19tZXNzYWdlPgogIDxhdXRob3I-YWxpY2VAZXhhbXBsZS5vcmc8L2F1dGhvcj4KICA8Z3VpZD5jYmQ0ODIyMDFmZTEwMTM0ODZmZTMxMzE3MzE3NTFlOTwvZ3VpZD4KICA8Y3JlYXRlZF9hdD4yMDE2LTA2LTI5IDA0OjQyOjIzIFVUQzwvY3JlYXRlZF9hdD4KICA8cmF3X21lc3NhZ2U-aSBhbSBhIHZlcnkgaW50ZXJlc3Rpbmcgc3RhdHVzIHVwZGF0ZTwvcmF3X21lc3NhZ2U-CiAgPHB1YmxpYz50cnVlPC9wdWJsaWM-Cjwvc3RhdHVzX21lc3NhZ2U-</me:data>
  <me:encoding>base64url</me:encoding>
  <me:alg>RSA-SHA256</me:alg>
  <me:sig key_id="YWxpY2VAZXhhbXBsZS5vcmc=">OBv90p9RfAvML28f5H-XDpAWpjk7f4W3I6JMY81OSzXEwPJVndNHRjAxifXd_Id1T7lHylyL0cly4ZBI9frTN5bZZg_03SfiEssZSj0a6KgEnNFIBh1ZG_7WUWon92jJCAO6f2SzVCjdcPSuRYZElFsQSp7zLxAV-Fz5oTdZanY=</me:sig>
</me:env>

Additional information and specifications

• Draft: The Salmon Protocol
• Draft: Magic Signatures

[diaspora-id]: {{ site.baseurl }}/federation/types.html#diaspora-id [entities]: {{ site.baseurl }}/entities/ [serialization]: {{ site.baseurl }}/federation/xml_serialization.html