WebDAV
WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is an extension of HTTP 1.1 and therefore can be considered to be a procotol. It contains a set of concepts and accompanying extension methods to allow read and write across the HTTP 1.1 protocol. Instead of using NFS or SMB, WebDAV offers file transfers via HTTP.
The goal of this how to is to setup a simple WebDAV configuration using Apache.
See also File Sharing with Webdav and DNSSD.
Server (Apache)
Install the Apache HTTP Server.
Now enable WebDAV. Uncomment the modules for DAV:
LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so LoadModule dav_lock_module modules/mod_dav_lock.so
Add the following line to /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
.
DAVLockDB /home/httpd/DAV/DAVLock
Make sure you add it outside of any other directives, for instance right under the DocumentRoot
definition.
Next, add the following (also outside of any directives):
Alias /dav "/home/httpd/html/dav" <Directory "/home/httpd/html/dav"> DAV On AllowOverride None Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Require all granted </Directory>
Create directories
# mkdir -p /home/httpd/DAV
Check the permissions of DavLockDB's directory and ensure it is writable by the apache user (http):
# chown -R http:http /home/httpd/DAV # Otherwise you wouldn't be able to upload files
# mkdir -p /home/httpd/html/dav # chown -R http:http /home/httpd/html/dav
Client (Cadaver)
Cadaver is a command line WebDAV client. It can be installed with the package cadaver, available in the official repositories.
Test it
# cadaver http://localhost/dav dav:/dav/> mkcol test Creating `test': succeeded. dav:/dav/> ls Listing collection `/dav/': succeeded. Coll: test dav:/dav/> exit
If the above worked as shown, then you are good to go.
Authentication
Make sure you add permissions for viewing and dav access to the directory, and maybe even make that directory ssl access only.
There are numerous different protocols you can use:
- plain
- digest
- others
Two examples follow, in which foo
is the username:
Using digest:
# basic form: htdigest -c /path/to/file AuthName username htdigest -c /etc/httpd/conf/passwd WebDAV foo
Using plain:
# basic form: htpasswd -c /path/to/file username htpasswd -c /etc/httpd/conf/passwd foo
Next, httpd.conf
must be edited to enable authentication. One method would be to require the user foo
for everything:
<Directory "/home/httpd/html/dav"> DAV On AllowOverride None Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AuthType Digest # substitute "Basic" for "Digest" if you used htpasswd above AuthName "WebDAV" AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/passwd Require user foo </Directory>
If you want to permit everybody to read, you could use this in your httpd.conf
<Directory "/home/httpd/html/dav"> DAV On AllowOverride None Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AuthType Digest # substitute "Basic" for "Digest" if you used htpasswd above AuthName "WebDAV" AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/passwd Require all granted <LimitExcept GET HEAD OPTIONS PROPFIND> Require user foo </LimitExcept> </Directory>
Do not forget to restart apache after making changes!
# systemctl restart httpd