Archived docs. ESS 2.0 has reached end of life.

Introduction#

Inrupt’s Enterprise Solid Server (ESS) is a Solid Pod Server. That is, ESS provides/hosts Solid Pods (where Pods are data storage locations) in accordance with the Solid specification.

Pod Server

Features#

Pod Management#

ESS’ Pod provisioning service creates Pods. Pods are where users store their data, both Resource Description Framework (RDF) data and non-RDF data. With ESS’ support for the Solid Protocol specification, navigating, creating, deleting and editing Solid Resources within a Pod is directly supported via the standard HTTP interfaces.

In addition, ESS provides a Query (QPF) endpoint to query RDF (Resource Description Framework) data in the Pod.

For more information, see:

Identity#

WebID#

ESS’ WebID service issues and manages WebIDs. A WebID is a URI/IRI that uniquely identifies a person, company, organization, etc.

In addition, starting in ESS 2.0, Pods and WebIDs are created independently of each other, and WebID profiles are no longer hosted on the Pods. This change allows for multiple Pods per WebID, prevents users from locking themselves out of their Pods, and allows users to obtain their WebID or Pods from alternative providers.

For more information, see WebID service.

Client ID#

An application identifies itself using a client identifier (Client ID). ESS supports the following Client ID types:

For more information, see Client Identifier (Client ID).

Security#

ESS’ security features include:

For more information, see Security.

Notifications#

New in version 1.1.

ESS provides a secure implementation of a WebSockets notification protocol. ESS WebSocket service sends asynchronous notifications upon changes to Resources. Applications can subscribe to a particular Resource, including a Container, and receive notifications upon changes to the subscribed Resource(s).

For more information, see WebSocket Notification Service.

Administrative Operations#

You can set up a centralized logging system to a backend logging system.

For more information, see Administration.

ESS Architecture#

ESS’ microservices architecture:

The following table lists the microservices:

Category

Microservices

Authentication

Solid OIDC Broker Service

Access Control

Storage

Entry/Landing

Start Service

Identity

WebID Service

Events

Support#

Inrupt offers up to 24/7 support for operators and developers with a commercial license for ESS.

See Inrupt Support Center.

Additional Information on Solid#

The Solid specification defines various Solid server/Pod behaviors, such as those related to: