Configuring WebDAV Properties

Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 supports WebDAV or Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, a standard in Web-based collaboration. WebDAV is an extension to the HTTP/1.1 protocol that allows clients to perform remote web content authoring operations.

A complete WebDAV transaction involves a WebDAV-enabled server, such as Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 that can service requests for WebDAV resources, as well as a WebDAV-enabled client such as Adobe reg GoLive reg or Macromedia reg DreamWeaver reg that supports WebDAV-enabled Web publishing requests.

On the server-side, you need to enable and configure Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 to be able to service WebDAV requests.

You might want to configure WebDAV for several reasons: for example, to tune server performance, to eliminate security risks, or to provide for conflict-free remote authoring.

To suit your configuration requirements, you can change the minimum amount of time the server holds a lock on a WebDAV resource, the depth of the PROPFIND request on a collection, and the maximum size of the XML content allowed in the body of a request, and so on.

Default WebDAV attributes can be configured at the virtual server level for all collections under a virtual server. The values configured here correspond to the DAV element in the server.xml file.

WebDAV attributes can also be configured at a collection level and override any virtual server level attributes configured for the collection. The attribute values configured at the collection level correspond to the DAVCOLLECTION element in the server.xml file.

Configuring General Settings

Click General > WebDAV tab from the selected configuration to edit WebDAV basic settings. The following table provides a short description of each field in the page:

Table 7 Field Description > WebDAV General Settings

Field	Description
WebDAV (Enable/Disable)	Enables/Disables WebDAV at the virtual server level. However the attributes specified on a collection overrides attribute values set at the virtual server level.
Default Owner	Default owner for the WebDAV resource. (root).
Lock Database Path	Specify the directory in which the locking database will be maintained.
Lock Database Update Interval	Interval at which WebDAV lock databases are synced to disk (Use 0 to disable caching of WebDAV lock information).
Minimum Lock Time-out	Specify the minimum lifetime of a lock in seconds. A value of -1 implies that the lock never expires. This value indicates the amount of time that an element will be locked before the lock is automatically removed.
Maximum Request Size	Specify the maximum size of the XML request body. You should configure this value to prevent possible denial of service attacks. The default value is 8192 (8K).
Maximum Property Depth	Specify the depth of the PROPFIND request. 0 applies only to the specified resource. This is the default value. 1 applies to the specified resource and the next level. infinity applies to the specified resource and all resources it contains. Also prevent excessive memory consumption by restricting the size of this parameter.
Maximum Expand Property Depth	Maximum depth allowed for WebDAV expand-property REPORT responses. (0-100)
Maximum Report Response Elements	The upper limit of the number of response elements a REPORT response body can have. (0 - 2147483647).
Maximum PROPFIND Depth	Maximum depth of PROPFIND requests sent to WebDAV collections.

Configuring WebDAV Authentication Database Settings

Click General > WebDAV tab from the selected configuration to edit WebDAV authentication database settings. The following table provides a short description of each field in the page:

Table 8 Field Description > WebDAV Authentication Database Settings

Field	Description
Authentication Database	Authentication Database lets you select a database the server will use to authenticate users. The default is keyfile
Authentication Method	Basic -- uses the HTTP Basic method to get authentication information from the client. The username and password are only encrypted over the network if SSL is turned on for the server. SSL -- uses the client certificate to authenticate the user. To use this method, SSL must be turned on for the server. When encryption is on, you can combine Basic and SSL methods. Digest -- uses an authentication mechanism that provides a way for a browser to authenticate based on username and password without sending the username and password as clear text. The browser uses the MD5 algorithm to create a digest value using the user's password and some information provided by the Web Server. Note that in order to use Digest the underlying auth-db must support digest as well. This means either a File auth-db using digestfile or an LDAP auth-db only if the Digest Authentication Plug-In has been installed. Other -- uses a custom method created using the access control API.
Authentication Prompt Text	Prompt for Authentication option allows you to enter message text that appears in the authentication dialog box. You can use this text to describe what the user needs to enter. Depending on the browser, the user will see about the first 40 characters of the prompt. Web browsers typically cache the username and password, and associate them with the prompt text. When the user accesses files and directories of the server having the same prompt, the usernames and passwords won't need to be entered again. If you want users to authenticate again for specific files and directories, you simply need to change the prompt for the ACL on that resource.

Field

Description

Authentication Database

Authentication Database lets you select a database the server will use to authenticate users.

The default is keyfile

Authentication Method

Basic -- uses the HTTP Basic method to get authentication information from the client. The username and password are only encrypted over the network if SSL is turned on for the server.
SSL -- uses the client certificate to authenticate the user. To use this method, SSL must be turned on for the server. When encryption is on, you can combine Basic and SSL methods.
Digest -- uses an authentication mechanism that provides a way for a browser to authenticate based on username and password without sending the username and password as clear text. The browser uses the MD5 algorithm to create a digest value using the user's password and some information provided by the Web Server. Note that in order to use Digest the underlying auth-db must support digest as well. This means either a File auth-db using digestfile or an LDAP auth-db only if the Digest Authentication Plug-In has been installed.
Other -- uses a custom method created using the access control API.

Authentication Prompt Text

Prompt for Authentication option allows you to enter message text that appears in the authentication dialog box. You can use this text to describe what the user needs to enter. Depending on the browser, the user will see about the first 40 characters of the prompt.

Web browsers typically cache the username and password, and associate them with the prompt text. When the user accesses files and directories of the server having the same prompt, the usernames and passwords won't need to be entered again. If you want users to authenticate again for specific files and directories, you simply need to change the prompt for the ACL on that resource.

Configuring WebDAV ACL Database Settings

Click General > WebDAV tab from the selected configuration to edit WebDAV ACL database settings. The following table provides a short description of each field in the page:

Table 9 Field Description > WebDAV ACL Database Settings

Field	Description
Maximum Entries	Maximum number of ACEs to allow on a single resource (Use -1 for no limit). (0 - 2147483647).
Maximum Size	Maximum size of the memory representation of the WebDAV ACL database for a collection (Use -1 for no limit). (0 - 2147483647) bytes.
Update Interval	Interval at which WebDAV ACL databases are synced to disk (Use 0 to disable caching of WebDAV ACL). (0.001 - 3600) seconds.

Configuring WebDAV Property Database Settings

Click General > WebDAV tab from the selected configuration to edit WebDAV Property database settings. The following table provides a short description of each field in the page:

Table 10 Field Description > WebDAV Property Database Settings

Field	Description
Maximum Size	Maximum size of WebDAV property database files (Use -1 for no limit). (0 - 2147483647) bytes. Default is 8192 bytes.
Update Interval	Interval at which WebDAV property databases are synced to disk (Use 0 to disable caching of WebDAV properties). (0.001 - 3600) seconds. Default is 0 second.

Configuring WebDAV Collections

A WebDAV collection is a resource or a set of resources that are enabled for WebDAV operations. These operations include web publishing and collaborative authoring, namespace management, and metadata management.

Adding a WebDAV Collection

For adding a WebDAV collection, perform the following tasks:

Procedure Adding a WebDAV Collection

Click Configurations tab.
Select the configuration from the list.
Click Virtual Servers tab.
Select the virtual server from the list.
Click WebDAV tab > New button.

WebDAV Collection Settings

The WebDAV collection settings are described in the following table:

Table 11 Field Description > WebDAV Collection Settings

Field	Description
URI	The URI by which the content is accessed. (Required).
Source URI	The URI by which the source is accessed. (Optional).
Restrict Access	Enable this option to restrict users from accessing the new WebDAV collection.
Authentication Database	Authentication Database lets you select a database the server will use to authenticate users. The server can also look for users and groups in a directory service configured as default
Select Users	Either allow all users in the selected authentication DB to access the collection or specify the list of users as comma separated value.