Basically, a domain in this system consists of the string representation of a DNS domain, and a reference to a user, the owner of the domain. It also has a verified mark, the semantics of which will be explained below. Any user can have any number of domains.
In the user profile view, accessible by clicking on the button labelled with the username in the upper right corner, there is a link labelled add domain. Following it, the user is presented with a form to add a new domain. In this form the user simply has to fill in the name of the domain, and click on the add domain button. After adding a domain the user is redirected to the verification page of the domain, which is also the main page of a domain.
Adding a domain is not enough to use it in the system. PEER has to verify that the user has actual management rights over that domain in the DNS environment. To do this, the user can then click a button labelled Verify Ownership which takes her to the verification page. In this page there are several options to validate the domain.
With this option the user needs to create a resource in the root of the HTTP service for that domain with a specific string given in the verification page. Once she creates it, she has to click the Verify ownership by HTTP button. The system then sends an HTTP GET request to http://<the new domain>/<the verification string>, and only when it gets a 200 OK response code, it considers the domain (and marks it as) verified.
For the DNS verification the user has to create a DNS TXT record in the domain with that string. Once created, when clicking in the Verify ownership by DNS, button the system checks that such record exists and only if it exits is the domain marked as verified.
You can also verify a subdomain by adding the TXT record to the subdomain itself or to the second-level domain.
Note
The DNS record changes may take some time to propagate.
This option is only available for administrators. In this case the administrator user just need to click on the Verify ownership by force button to mark the domain as validated. The system trusts these kind of users and will do as they say without problems.
When an administrator validates a domain using this option she will be redirected to another page where she will be able to add users to this domain’s team. Being on a domain’s team means having the same privileges as the owner of the team. This way an administrator can create several domains and assign teams to manage them.
The domains belonging to the user are listed in her profile as verified or unverified. In the case of unverified domains she can click on the Verify Ownership button which takes her to the verification page. She can also delete any domain from this page.
In the case of verified domains the Verify Ownership button will dissapear and, in the case of an administrator user, it will be replaced by a Manage domain team button that will takes her to the page where she can add and remove users to such team.
Every entity in PEER is associated with a domain object. This is used in some validators that check that some parts of the entity’s metadata (such as endpoints) belongs to its entity’s domain.