WebDAV File Sharing Setup In Linux davfs | Arkit

WebDAV is Web-Based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, the open standard can be used for sharing files over the network using HTTP and https protocols. More flexible to access remote data as an online hard disk.  WebDAV File sharing is completely secure because it requires credentials to access.

WebDAV File Sharing

mod_dav is an Apache native module that will be installed by default when you install httpd packages.  User feels more flexible while accessing the WedDAV File sharing because do not require any extra tools to access.

# yum install http httpd -y;  systemctl start httpd;  systemctl enable httpd
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/httpd.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service.

Create WebDAV directory and lock database for further configuration

# mkdir -p /etc/httpd/var/webdavlock /var/www/html/webdav
# chown apache:apache /var/www/html/webdav /etc/httpd/var/webdavlock
# chmod 770 /var/www/html/webdav

Add new configuration file for WebDAV as a Virtual host in HTTPD conf path /etc/httpd/conf.d/

# cat /etc/httpd/conf.d/webdav.conf

DavLockDB "/etc/httpd/var/webdavlock"
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin root@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/webdav/
ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error.log
Alias /webdav /var/www/html/webdav
<Directory /var/www/html/webdav>
DAV On
Options None
AuthType Basic
AuthName "webdav"
AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/passwords
Require valid-user
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Create a user to authentication and access, WebDAV from the remote client

# htpasswd -c /etc/httpd/passwords aravi
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user aravi

[root@TechArkit ~]# cat /etc/httpd/passwords
aravi:$apr1$uigd2VKZ$Ke93cQXrc/CJmXVbVKYDB.

Install and mount WebDAV using davfs file system

Configure EPEL repository by installing yum install epel-release

# yum -y install davfs2

# rpm -qa |grep davfs
davfs2-1.4.7-6.el7.x86_64

If you try with other than EPEL repository you may not find the package in the repository

After successful installation of davfs2, add the user locks entry or UN-comment the existing config line

# echo "use_locks 0" >> /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf
# mkdir /mnt/webdavmount
# mount -t davfs http://192.168.220.128/webdav /mnt/webdavmount/
Please enter the username to authenticate with server
http://192.168.220.128/webdav or hit enter for none.
Username: aravi
Please enter the password to authenticate user aravi with server
http://192.168.220.128/webdav or hit enter for none.
Password:
/sbin/mount.davfs: Warning: can't write entry into mtab, but will mount the file system anyway

After successful mount check the mount point

# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
http://192.168.220.128/webdav 26G 13G 13G 50% /mnt/webdavmount

Access from Web Browser

Open the web browser and type the URL of WebDAV http://Server-IP/webdav

That’s how you can simply access the file share using a web browser

Accessing Via Command-line Client cadaver

cadaver – A command-line WebDAV client for Unix. cadaver supports file upload, download, on-screen display, namespace operations (move and copy), collection creation and deletion, and locking operations. Its operation is similar to the standard BSD ftp(1) client and the Samba Project’s smbclient(1). A user familiar with these tools should be quite comfortable with the cadaver. cadaver supports automatically logging in to servers requiring authentication via a .netrc file (similar to ftp(1) – see section “THE .netrc FILE” below).

# yum install cadaver
# cadaver http://192.168.220.128/webdav
Authentication required for webdav on server `192.168.220.128':
Username: aravi
Password:
dav:/webdav/>

That’s it about. WebDAV file sharing and accessing from clients.

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