Re: [MLUG] WebDAV (From Exchange drop-in thread)

[Jason McIntosh <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 12/10/02 11:54 AM, "Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Jason McIntosh wrote:
> 
>> On 12/10/02 11:17 AM, "Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>> 
>> [snipped]
>> 
>>>> Now, on the other hand, there could be a piece-meal solution.
>>>> You could use a WebDAV system or similar for folder management,
>>> 
>>> [snip] As an aside, what's the best source of information on WebDAV?
>>> The more I hear about it, the more intrigued I am by the whole
>>> idea.
>> 
>> WebDAV as an interesting technology.  Look at www.webdav.org.
> 
> I've been there before, but I'll look again.
> 
>> If you're running Windows XP, it can mount WebDAV enabled
>> systems.  OS X does so as well.
> 
> I believe this is how the (now departed) iDisk stuff worked, right?
> 
>> Linux can with certain compiled modules, but doesn't with the
>> default systems right now.
> 
> OK; in this case you mean the DAV modules for Apache, right?
> Anyway, what I knew before was:
> 
>> WebDAV is a protocol extension to HTTP.  It essentially acts as
>> a filesystem, allowing you to upload files, and get information.
>> It's pretty cool, and Apple is using it heavily in all their
>> products.  
> 
> And the news is:
> 
>> I enabled it on my workstation at work, and can connect to it
>> from my OS X laptop.
>> 
>> http://www.drijf.net/dototto/index.html
> 
> OK, so this is now getting pretty useful and serious.  Thanks!
> 
>> Has the OS X and apple instructions for a few things.  Let me
>> know if you need more info on configuration, setup, etc.  I
>> ended up using Apache toolbox on my RedHat 8.0 system (which
>> just switched to Gentoo), and it worked for the most part.
>> Getting the quota support into WebDAV was tricky, but aftewards,
>> it worked fine.
> 
> OK, so just to recap:  Using WebDav you can mount volumes, achieve
> read/write access to files on these, maybe even do locking, and run
> the whole thing over an encrypted connection and access everything
> (if you really wanted) through a web browser.  Is this close?  If
> so, how close are we getting to the elimination of stuff like NFS?
> :-)
> 
> jking
> 
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Well, there are some problems with WebDAV.  First, it's a little funky on
the security support.  It does support an SSL enabled connection, but it's
funky on user rights, configuration, etc.  I haven't had all that much
opportunity to play with WebDAV with multiple users, but we'll see what
happens when that situation crops up.
Also, NFS vs. WebDAV - NFS is MUCH faster.  It's also designed around the
Unix security system, uses UDP (by default on Linux), and has a lot more
years of support.  WebDAV has some nice things, yes, such as the browser
support, but it's not near as flexible as NFS.
Last, WebDAV depends on the HTTP protocol.  This means a webserver of some
sort.  No webserver, no DAV.  Not that that's a hard thing to implement for
a minimal system, but it is often just extra overhead.
Cheers!
Jason

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