Server Admin 10.4 Help

Using WebDAV to Share Files

You can use WebDAV to allow authorized users to connect to a website on the server and to share files on that site. The steps below provide a brief example of setting up and using shared files using WebDAV.

• Turn on WebDAV for the site in Server Admin.

  See Enabling WebDAV on Websites for details.

• Set up Realms for the site in Server Admin to control access to the site.

  See Setting Access for Websites for details.

For example, you could create a folder for shared documents inside the website's folder and give specific people browse and author access to that folder.

• Tell authorized users how to connect to the site using the WebDav client built into Mac  OS X (or Mac OS X Server).

Users can connect to the website using a WebDAV-enabled application, such as the Finder in Mac OS X, Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Microsoft Explorer. Browsers are not generally WebDAV-enabled. But a browser can access a WebDAV-enabled site and do read operations (limited only by realm permissions configured on the web server), because WebDAV is a superset of HTTP. Write operations cannot be performed by a web browser; they require a WebDAV client, such as Goliath, or the one built into the Mac OS X file system and typically used via the Finder.

Note: To connect from another platform, see the platform-specific documentation for the appropriate WebDAV client. Microsoft platforms use an authentication mechanism that may make it difficult or impossible to mount WebDAV volumes from Mac OS X.

The URL for connecting through such an application is http://<serverURL>:<server port>/<folder or directory where collaborative files are stored>.