Cool

Using WebDAV, I can view the files here on the Web Development Blog. Note: It's not a good idea to use this to edit actual entries, but you can use this to add static .html files such as your "About Us" page.

Here at Case Western Reserve University, we're about to upgrade our primary Web server. Part of this upgrade involves changing the way we upload content to the server. Where in the past we've been using FTP, beginning Monday, May 19, 2008, we'll be using WebDAV. WebDAV has been growing in popularity over the last few years and is now provided as an option by many Web hosting providers. Those of you using FTP on Case or other Web servers may wish to check with your network administrator or Web hosting provider to see if other protocols such as WebDAV are available.

What is WebDAV?

According to WebDAV Resources, "WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers."

This sounds complicated, but for the typical user WebDAV simply provides a more efficient way of writing your content to a Web server. WebDAV is more secure than FTP, allows one to transfer multiple files in one connection, can lock files so that they can only be accessed by one person at a time and let's you view and access your files on your computer the way you would any regular drive.

If you've been using FTP, you've been editing local copies of your files on your computer then putting/uploading them to the server. If multiple users work on the site, you will get/download the latest version from the server before making additional edits and hope that you're not all editing the files at the same time. When you connect to your server using WebDAV you can look at your files the way you would look at any file directory. You can write to the server by dragging/copying from your local directory to the server directory, or you can edit the files on the server directly—just remember that you are editing live files; you may find it prudent to keep a prior version on your local computer in case you need to revert back to it.

How do I connect to a site using WebDAV?

Those of you using Macintosh or Linux computers have it easy. WebDAV is built into the operating system. To connect on a Macintosh simply:

1. Go to the "Go" menu in the Finder
2. Select "Connect to Server"
3. Type or paste the address of your server. On the new Case server that will be: https://www.case.edu:8000/<your network id>/<your group's Aurora account name>. (Don't type the angle brackets, you want an address that looks something like https://www.case.edu:8000/xyz67/departmentx)
4. Login at the prompt and save the password in your keychain

At this point your server directory will open up as a folder on your computer and you can work with it as you would any other directory. The video below shows the process in action.

Case users with accounts on http://filer.case.edu or http://blog.case.edu can also use WebDAV. To connect to filer using WebDAV use: https://filer.case.edu/dav/<your network id>/. To connect to the Blog server use: https://blog.case.edu/<your blog name>/.

View at full size on Vimeo.

Connecting via WebDAV on older Macintosh machines running OS 8 or 9

If you've got an older Macintosh that you are still using in your Web development work, you can still connect via WebDAV using Goliath. Visit the Goliath Web site to download the software and read the FAQs and help files. Versions for OS X are also available.

Connecting with WebDrive or Dreamweaver on Macintosh and Windows

• Uploading files with the WebDrive WebDAV client for Windows
• Uploading files with Dreamweaver (WebDAV)

The ITS Web group has also provided detailed instructions on the Case Wiki.

WebDAV resources for those who want more technical details

• Apache based WebDAV Server with LDAP and SSL
• IETF WEBDAV Working Group
• WebDAV: A Web-Writing Protocol and More
• WebDAV Resources
• WEB-DAV Linux File System(davfs)
• Wikipedia: WebDAV