If you cannot find yourself with Mastodon client / WebFinger problems - a working hack

[j0uni]

If you are struggling to be found with Mastodon etc search, you probably have the WebFinger working incorrectly.

First of all I couldn't get WebFinger working with just installing this plugin. I ended up creating the .well-known/webfinger file manually in my web root directory. If you have only one user account that is writing to your WordPress, it is probably not worth the trouble to fight with ReWrite or such, just create the file manually.

The file should look something like this:

{
    "subject": "jouni@YOURDOMAIN",
    "aliases": [
        "https://YOURDOMAIN/author/jouni/"
    ],
    "links": [
        {
            "rel": "self",
            "type": "application/activity+json",
            "href": "https://YOURDOMAIN/author/jouni/"
        },
        {
            "rel": "http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page",
            "type": "text/html",
            "href": "https://YOURDOMAIN/author/jouni/"
        }
    ]
}

The most important part is the href of "application/activity+json". How do you get that?

First of all remember that the correct URL for this is depend on the permalink settings on Wordpress. So configure your permalinks to what you want before next step.

You get the correct content for your WebFinger from this URL: https://YOURDOMAIN/?rest_route=/activitypub/1.0/webfinger&resource=acct:jouni@YOURDOMAIN - just copy paste the output of this to your fixed webfinger file at .well-known.

After this you should be fine and get things running.

Remember that this is a hack but it works. If you change your permalink settings or account name you probably need to fix your webfinger. You can render your site un-foundable quite easily so please remember checking that your webfinger is working after changes to WP config.

[pfefferle]

Thanks for this really creative workaround! 😊

[punkrockgirl]

Hi,

If my WordPress blog is hosted on a subdomain, where is the webfinger supposed to go: domain.com's .well-known folder, or blog.domain.com's one?

I've tried both and I still get that my

WebFinger endpoint does not return valid JSON for application/jrd+json

My blog is hosted on Dreamhost (shared plan) and before trying this I went with the redirect: RedirectMatch "^\/\.well-known(.*)$" "\/blog\/\.well-known$1" The result is the same: Error getting JRD: 400 Bad Request

[timnolte]

@punkrockgirl the problem is Dreamhost with Let's Encrypt. With that hosting there is a real folder that contains the SSL certificate verification endpoint. You have to use the .htaccess details provided elsewhere in this issue.

[pfefferle]

@punkrockgirl it is supposed to use the subdomain. You should see how the WebFinger resource should look like on the welcome page. If you try to check this resource on https://webfinger.net , it shows you how the URL has to look like: https://blog.domain.com/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:username@blog.domain.com

...and what @timnolte says!

[punkrockgirl]

Thanks,

Well, I tried subdomain and root, but it didn't fix anything. When visiting the url, I get missing "resource" parameter. I have since deleted the webfinger files (that I created manually).

I'm checking this issue now and done two quick tests:

• url.domain.ltd/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/webfinger: {"code":"rest_missing_callback_param","message":"resource parameter is missing","data":{"status":400,"params":["resource"]}}
• url.domain.ltd/.well-known/webfinger: 404 (forbidden.html)

I haven't used WordPress in 5 years so I'm really rusty. I'm going to read everything properly once I finish upgrading Nextcloud.

[danielstucke]

Thank you so much for this!

[echoleaf]

If this doesn't work, is there an alternative? I'm guessing something changed on my server as activitypub was working on a site, and it's not now.

[macstainless]

Commenting to say this worked and resolved my lingering Webfinger issue. THANK YOU!!!

[MindCreatesMeaning]

This worked for me when nothing else even came close!! (July 2023)

[spudart]

When creating WebFinger file manually, what do I name the file? Just "webfinger"? Is there an extension I should use?

[pfefferle]

@spudart it has to be accessible through /.well-known/webfinger so if you do it a simple textfile, it has to be without the extension. If you want to write a php file that proxies the requests, it could be /.well-known/webfinger/index.php (but I am not sure if PHP will be interpreted in the .well-known folder).

[tobiasgraywrites]

My apologies for posting on a 'closed' issue but I didn't see anything more relevant that might be able to help us out. We've implemented the above 'workaround' and still haven't seen anything show up on Mastodon (I figure it will take some time, anyway) so I'm content to wait but I was also wondering if there was an example configuration of how to do to this for multiple authors or if it would be best for the @blog@example.com blog profile rather than trying to map it for individual authors. Thank you for your time!

Edit: I failed to mention that this works wonderfully and as expected on other fediverse applications such as Misskey/Sharkey and other WordPress blogs which I find to be interesting. Too bad Mastodon seems to still have the lion's share or this wouldn't be much of an issue lol

Edit 2: Using the format https://(DOMAIN NAME)/@(USERNAME) in the hrefs field of the above code worked for the blog profile, still not sure how to implement this for all authors as I've not much experience with webfinger yet.

[j0uni]

My apologies for posting on a 'closed' issue but I didn't see anything more relevant that might be able to help us out. We've implemented the above 'workaround' and still haven't seen anything show up on Mastodon (I figure it will take some time, anyway) so I'm content to wait but I was also wondering if there was an example configuration of how to do to this for multiple authors or if it would be best for the @blog@example.com blog profile rather than trying to map it for individual authors. Thank you for your time!

Edit: I failed to mention that this works wonderfully and as expected on other fediverse applications such as Misskey/Sharkey and other WordPress blogs which I find to be interesting. Too bad Mastodon seems to still have the lion's share or this wouldn't be much of an issue lol

Edit 2: Using the format https://(DOMAIN NAME)/@(USERNAME) in the hrefs field of the above code worked for the blog profile, still not sure how to implement this for all authors as I've not much experience with webfinger yet.

You need to edit the webfinger file manually for all the authors manually. It should work then if you just enter information correctly.

I actually managed to get this plugin working some weeks ago without any hacks. I didn't do that much any trickery, just basic .htaccess and stuff but I would recommend try to get things working "naturally" as it makes this pretty smooth.