The content of this topic has been archived on 6 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.
Did anybody already tried to mount an external directory useing WebDAV? Was it successful?
Unluckyly not all OpenWrt routers have a USB-Port (eg linksys), so WebDAV could be an internet friendly way to mount shares on some remote servers to store and read files.
(Useing SMB can be considered an alternative for 'local' servers, but often they are not an option when trying to access them from outside the lan.)
WebDAV on first examination looks like a great way to do file-sharing.
However, it's a half-finished idea that doesn't seem to be going anywhere:
1) You have to have a Web-DAV capable web-server to share files with. Apache or IIS are not lightweight for most people to setup.
2) Many OS include client implementations, but none of them seem to adhere to anything vaguely resembling a standard, and don't agree with each other. MacOS 10.3 client does not support https: access. Even in XP, there are *2* clients present that behave in different ways. The "Network Neighborhood" copy of the client code is fairly flexible, but doesn't allow you to drag-and-drop or directly access files. The "Map Network Drive" code will let you do these things, but absolutely requires you to use hashed password authentication and will not support Basic Authentication methods.
3) The file-ownership model is fundamentally goofy
I worked with it a while trying to implement it as a file-sharing scheme for campus users, and eventually gave up. Too many issues.
Hi vincentfox,
I disagree that setting up Apache for WebDAV is that hard. (But maybe it depends just on what you want to do ...)
I am not sure, if Apple only supports http, but it does support WebDAV in the Finder with digest authentication (I managed to configure Apache in such a way some years ago ...). But since I am a .mac user, I would like simply to access my idisk ....
Yeah and even on the Mac, the DAV behavior changes from 10.3 to 10.4. In 10.3 https is not supported, in 10.4 it is.
It all you are is one person wanting to do one thing, and you always access it from the same platofrm, it works tolerably well. If you go anywhere outside that things can get complicated quickly. You are at a friends's house and they have WinXP you may have some issues. Or you have set it up to work with Win2K maybe you won't be able to get to it from a randomly chosen Mac box. Get my point? It is not hard to setup, it is hard to get it work WELL.
Also, as I mentioned the file ownership model violates good Apache security principles. The files end up being owned by the web process, ordinarily not a good idea. Also it doesn't really encompass the idea of multiple users, although you can work around that with some grody hacks. If you have 10.4 and all you ever need is I-Disk support, fine it works. The more you try to do with it, the more of a migraine it will give you because it was really not designed for file-sharing, I would call it someone's quick hack to let a web-developer edit content without consideration for security.
My 2 cents worth of inputs here:
You're correct on the recent MacOS 10.4 support for HTTPS, but regarding WebDAV incompatible across various platforms (e.g. Win32 versus Mac versus Unix/Linux), I would disagree with that. The DAV specs (RFC 2518) is pretty solid and have been supported by major commerical vendors (e.g. Microsoft, Xythos, Oracle, IBM, Xerox, etc.) for their enterprise content mgmt servers.
The Apache mod_dav module and the Jakarta Tomcat and Slide webdav module are pretty solid also.
You can download a MacOS based WebDAV client called Goliath at the following url:
http://www.webdav.org/goliath/
Anyways, I think its a matter of requirements and preference to anyone who would like to utilize what DAV gotta offer.
~Peter
Yeah and even on the Mac, the DAV behavior changes from 10.3 to 10.4. In 10.3 https is not supported, in 10.4 it is.
It all you are is one person wanting to do one thing, and you always access it from the same platofrm, it works tolerably well. If you go anywhere outside that things can get complicated quickly. You are at a friends's house and they have WinXP you may have some issues. Or you have set it up to work with Win2K maybe you won't be able to get to it from a randomly chosen Mac box. Get my point? It is not hard to setup, it is hard to get it work WELL.
Also, as I mentioned the file ownership model violates good Apache security principles. The files end up being owned by the web process, ordinarily not a good idea. Also it doesn't really encompass the idea of multiple users, although you can work around that with some grody hacks. If you have 10.4 and all you ever need is I-Disk support, fine it works. The more you try to do with it, the more of a migraine it will give you because it was really not designed for file-sharing, I would call it someone's quick hack to let a web-developer edit content without consideration for security.
You'll have to tell me once again how compliant MS is? Hmmm? Worked with any of their implementations yourself? My classic example is this digest authentication being *required* in the XP "map network drive" client, but not the other one found in same OS? The excuse I found was well it's for security. And yet, they did not require https: for the data transport itself just this pansy password hashing. The DAV world doesn't seem to be strong on standards and compliance.
Aside from which, I return to my original point. It's not designed for file-sharing, and the file-ownership model shows it.
The discussion might have continued from here.