Using SRV records instead of requiring custom server specification

[madduck]

I should be able to log in to Riot.im with username madduck@madduck.net or @madduck:madduck.net and expect the app to to a SRV lookup on the domain to figure out the homeserver to use. Expecting users to specify a string like https://matrix.madduck.net:8448/ as "custom server" (which also requires several clicks and Javascript-roundtrips) is not particularly user-friendly.

[richvdh]

browsers don't support SRV lookups, so this is not possible. One option would be to support a .well-known file, which is tracked at matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals#433.

[jonas-hagen]

Would it be possible to use DNS-over-HTTPS? This specification attempts to solve exactly this problem. Possible providers would be Google and Cloudflare.

Example:
curl 'https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query?ct=application/dns-json&name=_matrix._tcp.matrix.org&type=SRV'

Also see: Mozilla Is Testing "DNS over HTTPS" Support in Firefox (it uses the 1.1.1.1 Cloudflare DNS server for DNS-over-HTTPS)

[t3chguy]

@jonas-hagen that means exposing your privacy to that provider. Plus the SRV is used only to specify the location of fed api and not client api, they don't have to be the same