Feature Request: Simple Signup with DNS SRV Records

[ghost]

Hi!

While watching the keynote at the Nextcloud Conference the new feature of Simple Signup was mentioned where a list of Nextcloud hosting providers can be chosen to create an account.

Although this is a good idea my first thought was like "Hu? Why not using DNS SRV records so that users can automatically directed to 'their' Nextcloud server for their mail domain?" This kind of service discovery is for example being used for Cisco Jabber as well (see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/jabber/11_0/CJAB_BK_C04C09E7_00_cisco-jabber-110-planning-guide/CJAB_BK_C04C09E7_00_cisco-jabber-110-planning-guide_chapter_0101.html) which works quite well.

So, when the client would ask for a mailadress of the user, it could then look up a DNS SRV record like e.g. _nextcloud-server._tcp.example.com pointing to cloud.example.com. With this the client would already be know which should be the preferred Nextcloud server for that maildomain.

At this point there would be several options possible: 1) the found/announced server will be displayed as first choice for the Simple Signup 2) the client could check the server for activated Registration app and proceed as needed by that app. 3) the client could check if the server offers authentication via another app such like SQL backend or IMAP auth or whatever and just ask the user for the needed password.

Option 3) would be the best and easiest way, because the user just need to install the Nextcloud app and enter her/his mailaddress and login with her/his already known password.

Option 2) would result in additional interaction with the server, of course, like clicking on a link that the Registration app sent to the user.

Option 1) would be more a less just a hint for the user that there is already a Nextcloud waiting for the user, but leaving him the choice to choose a different cloud service provider.

Of course there might be some interesting challenges that needs to be taken care of:

• having a mailaddress doesn't mean the user is allowed to use Nextcloud
• finding the user ID based on the given mailaddress can be a problem, depending on the implementation (like: standard Nextcloud setup, but user has no mailaddress entered)

However, I believe using DNS SRV records would be a great way to improve the end user experience! Ingo

[trenshaw]

I think the DNS SRV record could be abbreviated e.g. _nc._tcp.example.com .. as a Nextcloud provider we have clients create a CNAME e.g. cloud.client.com and point this to A record nc.provider.com

[ghost]

Any update on this (apparently not, but maybe in the background... ;))

[tflidd]

Could be interesting for federated sharing as well. It looks a bit like mail addresses already and you could then easily use your mail address (and not something that looks similar to it).