mod_dav - Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4









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Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4



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Apache Module mod_dav

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Description:Distributed Authoring and Versioning
(WebDAV) functionality
Status:Extension
Module Identifier:dav_module
Source File:mod_dav.c
Summary

    This module provides class 1 and class 2 WebDAV ('Web-based Distributed
    Authoring and Versioning') functionality for Apache. This
    extension to the HTTP protocol allows creating, moving,
    copying, and deleting resources and collections on a remote web
    server.

Topics

 Enabling WebDAV
 Security Issues
 Complex Configurations
Directives

 Dav
 DavBasePath
 DavDepthInfinity
 DavMinTimeout

Bugfix checklisthttpd changelogKnown issuesReport a bugSee also

DavLockDB
LimitXMLRequestBody
WebDAV Resources
Comments


Enabling WebDAV
    To enable mod_dav, add the following to a
    container in your httpd.conf file:

    Dav On


    This enables the DAV file system provider, which is implemented
    by the mod_dav_fs module. Therefore, that module
    must be compiled into the server or loaded at runtime using the
    LoadModule directive.

    In addition, a location for the DAV lock database must be
    specified in the global section of your httpd.conf
    file using the DavLockDB
    directive:

    DavLockDB /usr/local/apache2/var/DavLock


    The directory containing the lock database file must be
    writable by the User
    and Group under which
    Apache is running.

    You may wish to add a <Limit> clause inside the <Location> directive to limit access to
    DAV-enabled locations. If you want to set the maximum amount of
    bytes that a DAV client can send at one request, you have to use
    the LimitXMLRequestBody
    directive. The "normal" LimitRequestBody directive has no effect on DAV
    requests.

    Full ExampleDavLockDB "/usr/local/apache2/var/DavLock"

<Directory "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/foo">
    Dav On

    AuthType Basic
    AuthName DAV
    AuthUserFile "user.passwd"

    <RequireAny>
        Require method GET POST OPTIONS
        Require user admin
    </RequireAny>
</Directory>




Security Issues

    Since DAV access methods allow remote clients to manipulate
    files on the server, you must take particular care to assure that
    your server is secure before enabling mod_dav.

    Any location on the server where DAV is enabled should be
    protected by authentication.  The use of HTTP Basic Authentication
    is not recommended. You should use at least HTTP Digest
    Authentication, which is provided by the
    mod_auth_digest module. Nearly all WebDAV clients
    support this authentication method. An alternative is Basic
    Authentication over an SSL enabled
    connection.

    In order for mod_dav to manage files, it must
    be able to write to the directories and files under its control
    using the User and
    Group under which
    Apache is running.  New files created will also be owned by this
    User and Group.  For this reason, it is
    important to control access to this account.  The DAV repository
    is considered private to Apache; modifying files outside of Apache
    (for example using FTP or filesystem-level tools) should not be
    allowed.

    mod_dav may be subject to various kinds of
    denial-of-service attacks.  The LimitXMLRequestBody directive can be
    used to limit the amount of memory consumed in parsing large DAV
    requests.  The DavDepthInfinity directive can be
    used to prevent PROPFIND requests on a very large
    repository from consuming large amounts of memory.  Another
    possible denial-of-service attack involves a client simply filling
    up all available disk space with many large files.  There is no
    direct way to prevent this in Apache, so you should avoid giving
    DAV access to untrusted users.


Complex Configurations

    One common request is to use mod_dav to
    manipulate dynamic files (PHP scripts, CGI scripts, etc).  This is
    difficult because a GET request will always run the
    script, rather than downloading its contents.  One way to avoid
    this is to map two different URLs to the content, one of which
    will run the script, and one of which will allow it to be
    downloaded and manipulated with DAV.

Alias "/phparea" "/home/gstein/php_files"
Alias "/php-source" "/home/gstein/php_files"
<Location "/php-source">
    Dav On
    ForceType text/plain
</Location>


    With this setup, http://example.com/phparea can be
    used to access the output of the PHP scripts, and
    http://example.com/php-source can be used with a DAV
    client to manipulate them.


Dav Directive

Description:Enable WebDAV HTTP methods
Syntax:Dav On|Off|provider-name
Default:Dav Off
Context:directory
Status:Extension
Module:mod_dav

    Use the Dav directive to enable the
    WebDAV HTTP methods for the given container:

    <Location "/foo">
    Dav On
</Location>


    The value On is actually an alias for the default
    provider filesystem which is served by the mod_dav_fs module. Note, that once you have DAV enabled
    for some location, it cannot be disabled for sublocations.
    For a complete configuration example have a look at the section above.

    
      Do not enable WebDAV until you have secured your server. Otherwise
      everyone will be able to distribute files on your system.
    



DavBasePath Directive

Description:Configure repository root path
Syntax:DavBasePath root-path
Default:None
Context:directory
Status:Extension
Module:mod_dav
Compatibility:Available in version 2.4.58 and later

  If a DAV repository is configured using a regular expression
  match (such as LocationMatch)
  then mod_dav will not be able to find the root of
  the repository from the pathname alone. Third-party providers (for
  example, Subversion's mod_dav_svn)
  may fail to handle requests without the correct repository root.

  To allow providers to work correctly in such a configuration,
  DavBasePath must be used.

    <LocationMatch "^/repos/">
    Dav svn
    DavBasePath /repos
    SVNParentPath /var/svn
</LocationMatch>




DavDepthInfinity Directive

Description:Allow PROPFIND, Depth: Infinity requests
Syntax:DavDepthInfinity on|off
Default:DavDepthInfinity off
Context:server config, virtual host, directory
Status:Extension
Module:mod_dav

    Use the DavDepthInfinity directive to
    allow the processing of PROPFIND requests containing the
    header 'Depth: Infinity'. Because this type of request could constitute
    a denial-of-service attack, by default it is not allowed.



DavMinTimeout Directive

Description:Minimum amount of time the server holds a lock on
a DAV resource
Syntax:DavMinTimeout seconds
Default:DavMinTimeout 0
Context:server config, virtual host, directory
Status:Extension
Module:mod_dav

    When a client requests a DAV resource lock, it can also
    specify a time when the lock will be automatically removed by
    the server. This value is only a request, and the server can
    ignore it or inform the client of an arbitrary value.

    Use the DavMinTimeout directive to specify, in
    seconds, the minimum lock timeout to return to a client.
    Microsoft Web Folders defaults to a timeout of 120 seconds; the
    DavMinTimeout can override this to a higher value
    (like 600 seconds) to reduce the chance of the client losing
    the lock due to network latency.

    Example<Location "/MSWord">
    DavMinTimeout 600
</Location>





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