Private XML Storage

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Private XML Storage This specification provides canonical documentation of the 'jabber:iq:private' namespace currently in common usage. &LEGALNOTICE; 0049 Active Historical Standards XMPP Core iq-private http://www.xmpp.org/schemas/iq-private.xsd &stpeter; Russell Davis ukscone@burninghorse.com ukscone@burninghorse.com 1.2 2004-03-01 psa Corrected several errors in the text; specified security considerations. 1.1 2004-01-06 psa Added XML schema; specified XMPP error handling; added security, IANA, and XMPP Registrar considerations. 1.0 2003-01-09 psa Updated status to Active per vote of the Jabber Council. 0.4 2002-11-21 psa Fixed error handling with regard to reserved namespaces; specified error regarding empty IQ get request. 0.3 2002-11-21 psa Added error scenarios, removed most error codes, cleaned up the text. 0.2.1 2002-10-09 rkd Added error code table. 0.2 2002-10-08 rkd Corrected author email and jid. Added sentence about the inadvisability of use. 0.1 2002-10-08 rkd Initial version.

The 'jabber:iq:private' namespace has previously been documented in the Jabber Programmers Guide, but not in a canonical form such as the Internet-Drafts or a XEP. This specification documents the existing usage of jabber:iq:private.

A Jabber client can store any arbitrary XML on the server side by sending an &IQ; stanza of type "set" to the server with a &QUERY; child scoped by the 'jabber:iq:private' namespace. The &QUERY; element MAY contain any arbitrary XML fragment as long as the root element of that fragment is scoped by its own namespace. The data can then be retrieved by sending an &IQ; stanza of type "get" with a &QUERY; child scoped by the 'jabber:iq:private' namespace, which in turn contains a child element scoped by the namespace used for storage of that fragment. Using this method, Jabber entities can store private data on the server and retrieve it whenever necessary. The data stored might be anything, as long as it is valid XML. One typical usage for this namespace is the server-side storage of client-specific preferences; another is &xep0048;.

get	Sent with a blank query to retrieve the private data from the server.
set	Sent with the private XML data contained inside of a query.
result	Returns the private data from the server.
error	There was an error processing the request. The exact error can be found in the child error element.

The root element of this namespace is query. At least one child element with a proper namespace MUST be included; otherwise the server MUST respond with a "Not Acceptable" error (see &xep0086; for information about error conditions). A client MUST NOT query for more than one namespace in a single IQ get request. However, an IQ set or result MAY contain multiple elements qualified by the same namespace.

Hamlet SERVER: ]]> SERVER: Hamlet ]]>

If a user attempts to get or set jabber:iq:private data that belongs to another user, the server MUST return a "Forbidden" or "Service Unavailable" error to the sender (the latter condition is in common use by existing implementations, although the former is preferable).

Macbeth SERVER: Macbeth ]]>

If a user attempts to perform an IQ get without providing a child element, the server SHOULD return a "Bad Format" error (however, some existing implementations return a "Not Acceptable" error in such circumstances):

SERVER:

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Certain namespaces are reserved in Jabber (namespaces beginning with 'jabber:' or 'http://jabber.org/', as well as 'vcard-temp'). If a user attempts to get or set jabber:iq:private data in a reserved namespace, historically some server implementations have chosen to return an error (commonly "Not Acceptable") to the sender. Such behavior is OPTIONAL, but may be encountered by clients when interacting with some existing server implementations.

Hamlet SERVER (optional error): Hamlet

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Condition	Description
Bad Format	The IQ get does not contain a child element.
Forbidden	The IQ get or set is sent to a JID other than that of the sender.
Not Acceptable	The IQ get or set is qualified by a reserved namespace.

A server MUST NOT allow any entity other than an authorized resource of the user to create, update, or delete private XML stored on behalf of that user.

This document requires no interaction with &IANA;.

No action on the part of the ®ISTRAR; is necessary as a result of this document, since 'jabber:iq:private' is already a registered namespace.





  
    
      The protocol documented by this schema is defined in
      XEP-0049: http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0049.html
    
  

  
    
      
        
      
    
  


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