This document outlines extensions to the Lichat core protocol. As with the core protocol, you can find a machine-readable version in shirakumo.sexpr
Purpose: allow users to catch up with the contents of a channel should they initiate a new connection which does not currently have access to all the past updates of the channel.
In order to facilitate this, the server is forced to keep copies of the updates. The server is allowed to only keep updates for a certain duration, or only a certain number of total updates. In order to avoid spying, the server should not distribute updates that the user did not already receive previously through another connection. The server does not have to make any guarantee about the order in which the updates are sent back to the connection. The client on the other side is responsible for ordering them as appropriate according to the clock.
A new update type called backfill is introduced, which is a channel-update and has an extra, optional field called since which should be a universal-time timestamp. If the server receives such an update from a connection, it reacts as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
Following this, updates are sent back to the connection the update came from. These updates should include all updates that were distributed to users in the channel, spanning from now to an arbitrary point in time that is at most when the user of this connection last joined the channel and at most the specified since timestamp. The fields of the updates must be the equal to the first time the update was sent out. The initial event of the user that requested the backfill joining the channel cannot be sent back.
The original update is sent back to the user to indicate end of backfill.
Purpose: allows distributing images and other binary payloads.
A new update type called data is introduced, which is a channel-update. Additionally, a new failure type called bad-content-type is introduced, which is an update-failure. If the server receives a data update from a connection, it reacts as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the update's content-type is not accepted by the server, a bad-content-type update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The user's data update is distributed to all users in the channel.
The data update contains three slots, with the following intentions:
content-type A string representing the content type of the payload data contained in the update.
filename A string representing an arbitrary name given to the payload data.
payload A base-64 encoded string of binary data payload.
Purpose: introduces server-side emoticons that are distributed to all users for use on the client-side.
Any non-anonymous channel created by a registered user holds an emotes map. The server may restrict the size of this map. The server should also set the default permissions for emotes to anyone, and emote to only the registrant.
Two new update types called emotes and emote are introduced, both of which are channel-updates.
The emotes update contains one extra slot, with the following intentions:
names This contains a list of strings denoting the names of emotes the client knows about.
The emote update contains three extra slots, with the following intentions:
content-type A string representing the content type of the emote image contained in the update.
name A string representing the name of the emote.
payload A base-64 encoded string of binary data payload.
If the server receives an emotes update from a connection, it reacts as follows:
If the channel field is missing, the primary channel's name is substituted.
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the channel is anonymous or wasn't created by a registered user, an insufficient-permissions update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The server computes a set difference between the known emote names for the channel, and the names listed in the event's names slot. Emote names are case-insensitive.
For each emote in the calculated set, the server sends back an emote update, where the name is set to the emote's name, the channel to the channel, and the payload is set to the base-64 encoded image representing the emote. The content-type must be set accordingly.
The server sends back the original emotes update, having set the names field to the list of known emotes for this channel.
If the server receives an emote update from a connection, it reacts as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the name is not yet contained in the channel's emotes map, and the map already matches the size restriction of the server, an emote-list-full update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the content-type is not acceptable, an update of type bad-content-type is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the payload exceeds internal limits, an update of type update-too-long is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the payload is empty, the emote is removed, and otherwise the emote data is stored in the channel's emotes map.
The emote update is distributed to all users in the channel.
When the client receives an emote update from the server, it reacts as follows:
The payload and content-type are associated with the name and channel, and are persisted on the client. When the client sends an emotes event for the channel to the server it should include the name of this emote in the names list.
When the client sees a message update, every match of the regex :([^:]+): in the text where the group matched by the regex is the name of an emote from the known list of emotes for the current channel or the primary channel, then the match of the regex should be displayed to the user by an image of the emote's image.
Purpose: allows users to make retroactive edits to their messages.
A new update type called edit is introduced, which is a message. If the server receives an edit update it acts in the same way as a regular message event. No additional support from the server is required outside of recognising and accepting the type.
When the client sees an edit update, it should change the text of the message update with the same from and id fields to the one from the edit update. Ideally a user interface for Lichat should also include an indication that the previous message event has been changed, including perhaps even a history of all the potential edits of a message. If the text field of the edit update is empty, the message should be marked as deleted, or removed outright.
If the client receives an edit update whose id and from fields do not refer to any previous message update, the client should simply ignore the update. The client may make an exception for other content updates like data or link when the text of the edit is empty, causing the update to be marked as deleted.
If the client also supports the shirakumo-markup extension, it should also update the rich field of the original message.
Purpose: enforces a structure on channels and allows creating channel hierarchies for easier grouping.
A new convention for channel names is introduced. §2.4.4 is restricted further in the following manner: forward slash characters (U+002F) may only occur between two other characters that are not a forward slash character.
Generally for a channel-update, the following terminology is introduced: the parent channel is a channel with the name of the current channel up to and excluding the last forward slash character in the name. If no forward slash occurs in the name, the primary channel is considered the parent channel.
A new error no-such-parent-channel is introduced. It is an update-failure.
§5.3.1 is modified as follows: instead of point 1: If the parent channel does not exist, the server responds with a no-such-parent-channel update and drops the request. If the parent channel exists, the update is checked for permissions by the parent channel.
§5.5.1 is modified as follows: the channels update is upgraded to a channel-update and as such contains a channel field. When processing the channels update, the server should only process channels whose names begin with the name mentioned in the channel field followed by a forward slash and do not contain any further forward slashes.
Specifically, an update requesting foo should list foo/bar, but not foo/bar/baz.
Clients that support this extension are required to implement the following special semantic: if a user uses a command that requires a channel name, and the user begins the channel name with a forward slash, the client should automatically prepend the current channel name to the specified channel name, if there is a channel that is considered "current". If no channel is explicitly current, the primary channel is considered current.
If the client also supports the shirakumo-emotes extension, it should make sure that emotes from ancestor channels are available in any descendant channel.
Purpose: allows associating metadata with channels such as the set of rules, a topic, and so forth.
Channels receive extra metadata fields that can be set set by users. To this end, channels must keep a table of metadata to track. The server must restrict the valid keys in that table, and may restrict the content of values associated with each key. The following keys must always be available, with the specified intended purposes:
:title A human-readable title the client can display instead of the channel's name. Especially useful for anonymous channels.
:news Updates and latest news by channel administrators
:topic A description of the general discussion topic of the channel
:rules A Description of the rules that need to be followed by channel members
:contact Information on how to reach contact persons for administrative problems
:url Some kind of URL to a website representing the channel
A new update called channel-info is introduced. It is a channel-update and holds a keys field that can either be T or a list of keys as symbols describing the info to fetch.
A new update called set-channel-info is introduced. It is a channel-update and a text-update, and holds a key field that must be a symbol describing the info to set.
A new error no-such-channel-info is introduced. It is an update-failure and contains the additional field key, which must hold a symbol.
A new error malformed-channel-info is introduced. It is an update-failure.
When the server receives a channel-info update, it must react as follows:
For each of the requested keys, the server reacts as follows:
If the key does not exist, the server replies with a no-such-channel-info failure with the according key set, and the id set to the id of the original update.
Otherwise, the server replies with a set-channel-info update with the same id as the request, key set to the current key being requested, and text being set to the key's value.
When the server receives a set-channel-info update, it must react as follows:
If the specified key is not accepted by the server, it replies with a no-such-channel-info error and drops the update.
If the specified text is not of the correct format for the given key, it replies with a malformed-channel-info error and drops the update.
The internal channel metadata is updated to associate the given key with the given text.
The user's set-channel-info update is distributed to all users in the channel.
Purpose: adds capabilities for administrative actions like deleting users and channels.
The server now holds an additional property, a blacklist, which is a set of usernames.
§4.1 is modified to include the following step after §4.1.4 (Checking for name validity):
If the name is part of the blacklist set, a too-many-connections update is returned and the connection is closed.
A new update called kill is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives a kill update, it must react as follows:
If there is no user with a name corresponding to the target, the server replies with a no-such-user error and drops the update.
The user is removed from all channels it is in.
All connections the user is associated with are disconnected.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called destroy is introduced. It is a channel-update. When the server receives a destroy update, it must react as follows:
Unlike standard updates, the permission for the update must be checked against the primary channel, rather than the channel the update is targeting.
If there is no channel with a name corresponding to the channel, the server replies with a no-such-channel error and drops the update.
A leave update for the channel is sent to every user in the channel.
The channel is removed.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called ban is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives a ban update, it must react as follows:
The target is added to the blacklist set.
If a user with the target name is present, the user is removed from all channels it is in.
All connections the user is associated with are disconnected.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called unban is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives an unban update, it must react as follows:
The target is removed from the blacklist set.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called blacklist is introduced. When a server receives a blacklist update, it must react as follows:
The update's target field is set to the list of usernames contained in the blacklist.
The update is sent back to the user.
Purpose: allows throttling high traffic channels to prevent frequent spam by users.
Channels have a new property, a "pause", as well as a "last update list". Delivery of any channel-update is modified as follows:
If the from field of the update denotes a user whose entry in the "last update list" is a timestamp that's closer to the current timestamp than the channel's "pause", the server responds with a too-many-updates error and drops the update.
The current timestamp is placed into the user's entry in the "last update list".
The "pause" is noted in seconds and has a default value of 0. The "last update list" has a default timestamp of 0 for users without an entry.
§5.4.1 (joining of a channel) is modified by adding the following extra step at the end:
If the channel's "pause" property is greater than zero, a pause update is sent to the user with the by field set to the "pause" time.
A new update called pause is introduced. It is a channel-update and has an additional field called by, which must contain an integer in the range [0,infinity[. When the server receives a pause update, it must react as follows:
The channel's "pause" is set to "by".
The update is distributed to all users in the channel.
Purpose: allows placing users onto a quiet list that prevents them from reaching any other users.
Channels have a new property, a "quiet list". Delivery of any channel-update is modified as follows:
If the from field of the update denotes a user that is on the "quiet list", the update is sent back to that user, but not delivered to the rest of the channel.
Otherwise delivery proceeds as normal.
A new update called quiet is introduced. It is a target-update and a channel-update. When the server receives a quiet update, it must react as follows:
The target user is placed onto the "quiet list" of the channel.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called unquiet is introduced. It is a target-update and a channel-update. When the server receives an unquiet update, it must react as follows:
The target user is removed from the "quiet list" of the channel.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called quieted is introduced. It is a channel-update. When the server receives a quieted update, it must react as follows:
The update's target field is filled with a list of usernames on the channel's quiet list.
The update is sent back to the user.
Purpose: exposes IP address information and allows management of IPs.
Connections now have an additional property, the ip, which must be an IPv6 address. If the connection is established over IPv4, the ip should nevertheless be the IPv6 representation of this address.
The server has an additional property, an ip-blacklist, which is a set of IP addresses and masks as described below.
§4.1 is modified to include the following step before all others:
If the IP address the connection is coming from matches one from the ip-blacklist, the connection is immediately dropped.
An IP address a is considered the "same" as an IP address b under the mask m, if the bitwise AND of a and b with the bitwise inversion of m equals the same (a & !m == b & !m). The purpose of the mask is to allow addressing entire subnets.
A new update called ip-ban is introduced. It holds the required field ip and the optional field mask. If mask is not given, it should be assumed to be an IP address that is all 1s. Both the ip and mask field must be strings in either IPv4 or IPv6 format. When the server receives an ip-ban update, it must react as follows:
If either ip or mask do not designate IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, a bad-ip-format failure is sent and the update is dropped.
Scan through the existing ip-blacklist and for each:
if the IP matches ip under mask:
1. if the mask is greater (thus more general) than mask, the update is dropped
2. otherwise the entry is removed.
The entry of ip and mask is added to the blacklist.
Any connection matching the new entry is dropped.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update called ip-unban is introduced. It holds the same fields as ip-ban. When the server receives an ip-unban update, it must react as follows:
Scan through the existing ip-blacklist and for each:
1. if the IP matches ip under mask:
if the mask is greater than or equal to mask, the entry is removed.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new connection attribute called shirakumo:ip is introduced, which is a string showing the IP address from which the connection originates.
A new update called ip-blacklist is introduced. When a server receives an ip-blacklist update, it must react as follows:
The update's target field is set to the list of IP addresses and masks contained in the ip-blacklist.
The update is sent back to the user.
Purpose: allows bridging chat channels from external services by sending messages on behalf of other users.
A new, optional field :bridge is added to all channel-updates. Handling of channel-updates is modified as follows, after the check of §5.1.6 (channel existence check):
If the bridge field is set:
1. If the user is not in the channel, a not-in-channel failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
2. If the user does not have the permission to send a bridge update in the channel, an insufficient-permissions failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
3. The values of the bridge and from fields are swapped.
4. If the update would be delivered to all members of the channel ignoring all validity checks (it is not an update made for side-effects), then the update is sent to all members of the channel.
5. The update is dropped.
The server may choose to discard the bridge field for any number of update types, but must in the very least support message.
A new update called bridge is introduced. It is a channel-update. When the server receives a bridge update, it must react as follows:
The update is sent back to the user.
Purpose: allows storing data server-side to deliver it in a more efficient out-of-band fashion.
Clients and servers implementing this extension must also implement the shirakumo-data extension.
A new field called shirakumo:link is added to the message update.
When the server receives a data update, it must instead of §7.2.3 (distributing the update) act as follows:
The data payload is saved somewhere, such that it is publicly accessible through an HTTP or HTTPS URL.
A new message update is generated from the data update, with the text being the public URL of the payload, and the shirakumo:link attribute containing the content-type.
The new message update is distributed to the channel.
The update is dropped
The server may opt to make saved data payloads inaccessible after a time. The server should take care to generate URLs for the data payloads that are not guessable, which is to say a user cannot reliably generate URLs to access a payload. The server must serve the payload with the requested content-type set, and the content-disposition header may be set to include the requested filename in the update. The server must delete all data payloads if a channel is deleted (due to expiration or otherwise). The server may merge payloads that designate the same (byte-identical) files to the same URL.
When the client receives a link update, it must, as far as possible, embed the linked payload to display it directly. If it cannot display the payload directly, it may instead display the URL to which the link points.
Purpose: allows using different markup languages to stylise the text in text-updates.
text-updates all receive the following additional fields:
rich An AST containing a version of the text with markup information included. The text field must be set to the same text as this field, but with all markup information stripped away.
When a client receives a text-update it should check the rich field and if it is set, the client should render the text according to the rich contents instead of the text contents. The client may ignore parts of the rich text if it considers the markup unsuitable. If the markup contains errors, the client must fall back to displaying the unformatted text instead.
The content in the rich field is a an AST according to the following BNF:
rich ::= group
content ::= block | inline
block ::= group
| paragraph
| unordered-list
| ordered-list
| code
| section
| image
| quote
| extended-block
group ::= (:g () content*)
paragraph ::= (:p () inline*)
unordered-list ::= (:ul () group*)
--- Wherein each group represents a list item
ordered-list ::= (:ol () group*)
--- Wherein each group represents a list item
code ::= (:code string string)
--- The first string designates the language (and thus syntax highlighting rules) for the code in the second string.
section ::= (:section (integer inline*) content*)
--- The integer designates the depth of the header, and its accompanying inline segments the header content.
image ::= (:image target)
quote ::= (:quote string content*)
--- The string designating the quote author
extended-block ::= (symbol list content*)
--- A new block type defined in an extension. If the client does not support this block type, it should ignore the arguments list and treat the block as a group instead.
inline ::= bold
| italic
| underline
| strikethrough
| monospace
| subtext
| supertext
| link
| color
| string
| extended-inline
bold ::= (:b () inline*)
italic ::= (:i () inline*)
underline ::= (:u () inline*)
strikethrough ::= (:s () inline*)
monospace ::= (:m () inline*)
subtext ::= (:sub () inline*)
supertext ::= (:sup () inline*)
link ::= (:link target inline*)
color ::= (:color rgb inline*)
extended-inline ::= (symbol list inline*)
--- A new inline type defined in an extension. If the client does not support this block type, it should ignore the arguments list and treat the block as a group instead.
rgb ::= (float float float)
--- An sRGB additive colour triplet, with 0 meaning no contribution and 1 meaning full contribution to the respective channel.
target ::= string
--- An URL encoded in the string.Each of the blocks in the tree thus has the general form of (kind argument/s content*) which should simplify the process of parsing it and turning it into a visual representation.
Clients should allow users to write the rich text using some form of surface syntax. The following are suggested possibilities for such surface syntax:
html HTML5 content
markless Markless
markdown Markdown
org org-mode
rest reStructuredText
Note that in combination with the shirakumo-edit extension, the client should also support the inverse operation of turning the AST back into the surface syntax for the user.
Purpose: allows associating additional information with registered user accounts.
Profiles receive extra metadata fields that can be set set by users. To this end, profiles must keep a table of metadata to track. The server must restrict the valid keys in that table, and may restrict the content of values associated with each key. The following keys must always be available, with the specified intended purposes:
:birthday A textual description of the user's birthday.
:contact Other contact methods, typically email addresses.
:location A textual description of the user's real-world location.
:public-key A PGP public key.
:real-name The user's real-life name.
:status May be "away", or some arbitrary status description.
The user-info update is changed to now hold an optional info field that is an association list.
A new update called set-user-info is introduced. It is a text-update. It holds a key field that must be a symbol describing the info to set.
A new error no-such-user-info is introduced. It is an update-failure and contains the additional field key, which must hold a symbol.
A new error malformed-user-info is introduced. It is an update-failure.
When the server receives a user-info update, it must react as follows, in addition to the standard behaviour described in §5.5.3:
If the target user is not registered, this section is ignored.
For each user info key on the user's profile:
A list composed of the key and the value of the field are added to the info field of the user-info reply.
When the server receives a set-user-info update, it must react as follows:
If the target user is not registered, the server replies with a no-such-profile failure and drops the update.
If the specified key is not accepted by the server, it replies with a no-such-user-info error and drops the update.
If the specified text is not of the correct format for the given key, it replies with a malformed-user-info error and drops the update.
The internal user metadata is updated to associate the given key with the given text.
The set-user-info update is sent back.
Purpose: allows creating tokens that let other users post updates on behalf of another (registered) user account.
User profiles now have an additional field, a "lending map", which is a map associating keys (strings of at least 16 characters in length) to other usernames, and an "identities list", which is a list of usernames they can send updates on behalf of.
§5.1.5 (from field check) is modified as follows:
If the from field is in the connection's associated profile's "identities list" the from field check is elided.
A new update called share-identity is introduced. When the server receives a share-identity update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, a no-such-profile failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
If the profile already has too many identity shares, an identity-already-used failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
A new random key is generated and associated with nil in the profile's lending map.
The update is sent back with the key field set to the newly generated key.
A new update called unshare-identity is introduced. When the server receives an unshare-identity update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, a no-such-profile failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
If the key is not set, the profile's lending map is emptied and the user's name is removed from all identities lists.
Otherwise, the entry corresponding to the key is removed from the profile's lending map, and the user's name is removed from the identities list of the user who redeemed the key.
The update is sent back.
A new update called list-shared-identities is introduced. When the server receives a list-shared-identities update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, a no-such-profile failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
For every entry in the profile's lending map, the server gather's the key, as well as the username the associated connection is from (or nil if the key is not associated yet) into a list as for example:
(("aoeubcoeusasoet425" "test") ("aoestuhau245757Saoeus" NIL))The update is sent back, with the shares field set to the gathered list, and the identities field set to the user's identities list.
A new update called assume-identity is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives an assume-identity update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, a no-such-profile failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
If the target is already on the identities list of the profile, or the user is the target, an identity-already-used failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
If the key in the update is either not in the target profile's lending map, or the key is not associated with nil, an identity-already-used failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
The originating user is associated with the key in the target profile's map of shares, and the target is added to the originating profile's identities list.
The update is sent back to the originating connection.
Purpose: allows associating icons with channels and users.
This extension requires the shirakumo-channel-info or shirakumo-user-info extensions.
For channels and users, a new key type is introduced:
:icon The value of which must be a base64 encoded image file, with the content type prefixed like so: content-type base64.
The server may reject images that are too large in dimension, or have a bad content-type. The server must in the very least support image/png and image/gif as content-types.
Purpose: allows users to sign their messages with a PGP signature to ensure authenticity of the message.
updates now have an additional field, signature. The signature is computed based on the following utf-8 representation of updates:
UPDATE ::= OBJECT NULL
OBJECT ::= '(' SYMBOL (SPACE KEYWORD SPACE EXPR)* ')'
EXPR ::= STRING | LIST | SYMBOL | NUMBER
STRING ::= '"' ('\' '"' | '\' '\' | !('"' | NULL))* '"'
LIST ::= '(' (EXPR (SPACE EXPR)*)? ')'
SYMBOL ::= KEYWORD | NAME | NAME ':' NAME
KEYWORD ::= ':' NAME
NUMBER ::= '0..9'+ ( '.' '0..9'*)?
NAME ::= ('\' '\' | '\' TERMINAL | !(TERMINAL | NULL))+
TERMINAL ::= (':' | ' ' | '"' | '.' | '(' | ')')
SPACE ::= U+0020
NULL ::= U+0000This is equivalent to the standard wire format structure and the recommended way of printing, but enforces single space between tokens, no use of backslash escapes unless necessary, and forces a leading digit on numbers, essentially eliminating all ambiguities in the syntax. Additional constraints on printing the update's fields apply:
The fields must be printed by sorting them according to their unicode codepoints, meaning order is determined by comparing each codepoint in two candidates in turn and sorting the lower codepoint to be before the higher codepoint.
The signature field must be omitted.
The clock and from fields must be present.
As an example, printing a standard message update would look as follows:
(message :channel "test" :clock 424742 :id 0 :from "tester" :text "something")
When the server receives a message with the signature field set, the following constraints apply to §5.1:
If the from or clock fields are not set, a malformed-update update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The server must not adjust the clock value.
After the signature has been computed from the printed representation, the client should attach it to the signature field of the update and send it to the server. Clients may then verify the signature using the PGP public key of the user, if known. It is recommended for clients that support this extension to give a visual indicator for signed updates, especially if the signature verification should fail.
A user's pgp key may be retrieved out of band, or using the shirakumo-user-info :public-key field if available.
Purpose: allows users to search through the history of a channel to find relevant messages.
In order to facilitate this, the server must now keep updates in storage, potentially indefinitely. The server is only required to keep updates of type message, but may keep other updates of type channel-update as well. Of each update stored, the server must store at least the fields id, from, clock, and channel. It may store additional fields, and it may also drop them. This means that the server is not required to fully keep update identity.
A new update type called search is introduced. It is a channel-update, and holds three additional fields, results, offset, and query. The query field must hold a list of initargs, meaning alternating symbols and values to describe the keys to match. When the server receives a search update, it must proceed as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
It gathers a list of all recorded updates that were posted to the channel specified in the search update.
For each update in the list:
The query field is compared against the update by comparing each initarg in the query to the corresponding field in the update, based on the field's type:
- time: The query value must be a list of two elements, being either T or a time value, with T being "any time". The first element designates the lowest possible time to match, and the second the highest possible time to match. This thus designates a range of time values, with the bounds being inclusive.
- number: The query value must be a number, and is compared to the candidate value by a standard number equality test.
- symbol: The query value must be a symbol, and matches if the candidate is the same symbol.
- list: The query value must be another list, and matches the candidate if all of the elements of the query appear in the candidate list, regardless of order. Elements are compared recursively.
- string: The query value must be a list of strings, each of them designating a matching spec:
MATCH ::= CHAR*
CHAR ::= ESCAPED | ANY | NONE-OR-MORE | character
ESCAPED ::= '\' character
ANY ::= '_'
NONE-OR-MORE ::= '*'
Where ANY stands for any particular character, and NONE-OR-MORE stands for an arbitrary number of arbitrary characters. When matching a single "character" with ANY, the Unicode Collation Algorithm rules must be followed. The query value matches if at least one of its strings matches.
Should any of the fields not match, the update is removed from the list.
The list of updates is sorted in order of their clock with the lowest being first.
The first N updates are dropped off the list, where N corresponds to number in the offset field. If offset is not specified, 0 is assumed.
The first N updates are kept and the rest dropped off the list, where N is an internal server limit, which must be at least 50.
The list of updates is split into multiple lists such that each list can be reliably sent back to the user.
For each list of updates, the list is put into the search update's results field and the update is sent back.
The server should provide a means to delete updates from its history to ensure confidential and private information can be removed and is not preserved indefinitely. If the search update has a permission of NIL (being denied to everyone) in a channel, the history does not need to be recorded. If a channel expires, its history must be deleted.
The client should provide a convenient means to perform a search query. To this end we also specify a suggested means of formatting queries for end-user input. The query should be specified as freeform text, with the following queryspec format:
QUERY ::= (FIELD | TOKEN)+
FIELD ::= WORD ':' TOKEN
TOKEN ::= STRING | WORD
STRING ::= '"' ('\' char | !'"') '"'
WORD ::= (!TERMINAL)+
TERMINAL ::= ':' | ' ' | '"'Where a FIELD specifies a specific field to match in an update, with the WORD designating the initarg and the TOKEN the value. Special 'virtual fields' should be added:
after Designates the former element in a time match for the clock field. If only after is specified, the latter element is T. The actual format of the TOKEN does not have to be an integer, but should be some human-readable datestring.
before Designates the latter element in a time match for the clock field. If only before is specified, the former element is T. The actual format of the TOKEN does not have to be an integer, but should be some human-readable datestring.
in Designates the channel field. If not present, the client should infer the channel to use from the current channel.
The TOKEN should be parsed according to the standard wire format, unless more specific and convenient ways of specifying a fitting value are available. Each TOKEN than is not part of a FIELD, should designate a matching spec to be part of the list of matching specs for the text field.
In other words, the following queryspec:
from:tester after:2020-01-01 this "that is" in:test
Should be translated into a search update like this:
(search
:id 0
:channel "test"
:query (:from "tester"
:clock (3786825600 T)
:text ("this" "that is")))The client should also offer an easy way to page through the results using the offset field. The end of the paging may be detected should the server ever return less than 50 results.
If the server also supports the shirakumo-backfill extension, it may deliver backfill using the history, even if users were not previously in the channel. This poses a privacy risk, but as search is not otherwise restricted anyway, it makes no difference.
Purpose: allows users to block other users, preventing seeing their updates. Having this property server-side instead of client-side means it is automatically persisted and synchronised.
Profiles now have a new field: a block list. This is a list of usernames.
Whenever an update is distributed over a channel, the following behaviour must be followed:
For each (target) user in the channel:
If the user noted in the from field of the update is *not* the block list of the target user's profile:
The update is sent to all connections associated with the target user.
A new update type called block is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives a block update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, the server replies with a no-such-profile failure and drops the update.
The username from the target field is added to the profile's block list if it isn't present already.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update type called unblock is introduced. It is a target-update. When the server receives an unblock update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, the server replies with a no-such-profile failure and drops the update.
The username from the target field is removed to the profile's block list.
The update is sent back to the user.
A new update type called blocked is introduced. When the server receives a blocked update, it must react as follows:
If the user is not registered, the server replies with a no-such-profile failure and drops the update.
The update's target field is filled with a list of usernames on the sending user profile's block list.
The update is sent back to the user.
Purpose: allows users to react to messages without sending a new message.
This requires clients to implement unique IDs when sending an update. They do not need to be globally unique, but should be unique to that user, regardless of connection used.
A new update type called react is introduced. It is a channel-update and carries the additional fields update-id, target, and emote. update-id must be an id used in a message previously sent by the target user in the channel. emote must either be unicode characters from the emoji block, or if the shirakumo-emote extension is supported, the name of an emote.
When the server receives a react update, it must act as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the emote does not contain valid text as noted above, a malformed-update failure is sent back and the update is dropped.
The user's react update is distributed to all users in the channel.
For each visible update the client should now keep track of a table of reactions from emotes to lists of users that used the emote on the referenced update. When the client receives a react update, it should update the table as follows:
If the emote is not in the table yet, a new entry is added, associated to an empty list.
If the from user is not in the list of users, the user is added to it. Otherwise the user is removed from it.
The table of emotes is displayed in the vicinity of the referenced update as a list of emotes and counts of users having used said emote. If applicable, the list of users having used the emote should also be displayed via a hover action.
If a react update references an update that is not known to the client, it is ignored.
Purpose: allows specifying another message that a message is in reply to.
This requires clients to implement unique IDs when sending an update. They do not need to be globally unique, but should be unique to that user, regardless of connection used.
A new field is added to the message update: reply-to. The field should hold a list of two values, a username and an id, identifying the message this message is in reply to.
The server does not have to do anything special aside from transmitting the field.
When the client receives a message update with the reply-to field set, it should display the message in relation to the original message, by quoting it or linking back to it in some manner.
Purpose: allows tracking which message in a channel was last read across connections.
This requires the server to track a new per-user property in each channel: 'last read message', which is a tuple of a message ID and a username.
A new update is introduced called last-read, which is a channel-update. It has two additional optional fields, update-id, and target. update-id must be an id used in a message previously sent by the target user in the channel.
When the server receives a last-read update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not registered, an error of type no-such-profile is sent back and the update is dropped.
If the update-id and target fields are set:
. The id and target are stored for the user's 'last read message' in the associated channel.
. The update is sent back to the user.
Otherwise:
. The update is modified to use the 'last read message' information to fill in the update-id and target fields.
. The update is sent back to the sending connection.
If the user leaves a channel, the 'last read message' tuple may be unset. If a user enters a channel, the 'last read message' tuple must be set to the enter message's id and from fields, should the 'last read message' tuple be unset.
Purpose: allows specifying when a user is in the process of typing a message.
A new update is introduced called typing, which is a channel-update.
When the server receives a typing update, it proceeds as follows:
The update is distributed to all users in the channel.
When a client receives a typing update, it should notify the user that the update's sender is typing something. If no new typing update is received within the next 5 seconds, the typing notification should be cleared.
When the client's user types, the client may send a typing update to the current channel, as long as the previous typing update was sent more than 4 seconds ago.
Purpose: allows using one-time-passwords to authenticate against a user account.
The register update is changed to include an additional field called otp-key which is a string and contains some implementation-specific key used to determine validity of future OTP tokens.
When the server receives a register update with the otp-key field set, it should act as follows:
If the otp-key string is empty (zero length):
1. It deactivates one-time-password authentication for the account.
2. Otherwise, it stores the otp-key and enables the account for one-time-password authentication. If the key is invalid, an invalid-otp-key failure is returned and the update is dropped.
It sends the update back to the user.
The connect update is changed to include an additional field called otp-token which is a string and contains some implementation-specific one-time-password token obtained through the implementation's specified password generation mechanism.
When the server receives a connect update for an account for which one-time-password authentication has been enabled, an additional verification step is inserted after §4.1.7:
The otp-token is verified for validity against the stored otp-key by an implementation-specific mechanism. If the token is not valid or not provided, an invalid-password update is returned and the connection is closed.
Purpose: specifies a URL format to reference specific messages.
This does not introduce any protocol extensions and instead specifies a URL format that clients should be able to interpret to link to servers, channels, and specific messages. The specific format is as follows:
URL ::= 'lichat://' HOST (':' PORT)? '/' (CHANNEL ('#' MESSAGE)?)?
HOST --- The server hostname
PORT --- The server port. If unspecified defaults to 1111
CHANNEL --- An URL-encoded version of the channel name
MESSAGE ::= USER '@' ID
USER --- An URL-encoded version of the message FROM
ID --- An URL-encoded version of the message IDOr in other words, the protocol should be lichat, the path is the channel name, and the fragment encodes the message. It needs to encode both the sender and ID in order to uniquely identify the message, as IDs are only meant to be unique per user. The URL's query paramaters are left unspecified and may be used by clients and servers to include additional information.
Purpose: allows grouping sets of permissions into roles for easier management.
A new server-side object is introduced called role with the following attributes:
name The name of the role, which underlies the same restrictions as usernames described by §2.2.1
permissions A map assigning update types to be either granted (T), denied (NIL), or in the default, ignored.
members A set of usernames belonging to this role.
The channel object is updated to have a roles field, which maps a role name to a role object.
The following default set of role objects should be added to every newly created channel:
name: adminpermissions: ((kick T) (pull T) (set-channel-info T) (destroy T) (quiet T) (unquiet T) (quieted T) (bridge T) (permissions T) (grant T) (deny T) (role T) (delete-role T) (assign-role T) (remove-role T) (roles T))members: (creator)
name: moderatorpermissions: ((kick T) (pull T) (set-channel-info T) (quiet T) (unquiet T) (quieted T) (roles T))members: ()
name: bannedpermissions: ((join NIL) (message NIL) (kick NIL) (pull NIL) (permissions NIL) (grant NIL) (deny NIL) (users NIL) (channels NIL) (backfill NIL) (data NIL) (emote NIL) (edit NIL) (channel-info NIL) (set-channel-info NIL) (destroy NIL) (pause NIL) (quiet NIL) (unquiet NIL) (quieted NIL) (bridge NIL) (search NIL) (react NIL) (last-read NIL) (typing NIL) (role NIL) (delete-role NIL) (assign-role NIL) (remove-role NIL) (roles NIL))
Update permissions checking (§5.1.8) is extended as follows:
If the user has an entry in the channel's permissions set for the update type proceed as normal and skip this extra behaviour.
For each role:
If the update type does not have an entry in the permissions set of the role, skip.
If the user is not a part of the members set of the role, skip.
If the permission is set to NIL (deny), an insufficient-permissions update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the permission is set to T (grant), this is remembered.
When each role has been processed and there was a grant permission, the update is permitted.
Otherwise the channel's default permission entry for the update type is considered.
A new update is introduced called role-update, which is a channel-update. It is an abstract supertype and has no behaviour of its own.
A new update is introduced called role, which is a role-update.
When the server receives a role update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the permissions field is unset and no corresponding role exists for the channel, a no-such-role update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the permissions field is set and no corresponding role exists for the channel, the role object is created for the channel.
If the permissions field is set, the permissions field of the corresponding role is updated to match.
The permissions field of the update is set to match the permissions of the corresponding role.
The update is sent back.
A new update is introduced called delete-role, which is a role-update.
When the server receives a delete-role update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If no corresponding role exists for the channel, a no-such-role update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The corresponding role object is removed from the channel.
The update is sent back.
A new update is introduced called assign-role, which is a role-update and a target-update.
When the server receives an assign-role update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If no corresponding role exists for the channel, a no-such-role update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The target username is added to the set of members of the role if it does not already exist.
The update is sent back.
A new update is introduced called remove-role, which is a role-update and a target-update.
When the server receives an remove-role update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If no corresponding role exists for the channel, a no-such-role update is sent back and the request is dropped.
The target username is removed to the set of members of the role if it exists.
The update is sent back.
A new update is introduced called roles, which is a channel-update.
When the server receives an roles update, it proceeds as follows:
If the user is not in the named channel, a not-in-channel update is sent back and the request is dropped.
If the target field is set, the roles field is populated with the set of role names for which the target is a part of the members set.
If the target field is unset, the roles field is populated with the set of role names.
The update is sent back.