If your client happens to be Windows XP, you’re bound for some trouble. Of course, for something as important as WebDAV that you’re likely going to use for accessing your entire htdocs folder, a password sent as clear text will not cut it. So the authentication method of choice is digest authentication. Windows XP clients do support htdigest authentication, however, since Windows 2000, someone at Microsoft broke the code, causing Windows to think our WebDAV share actually uses another kind of authentication and to transmit the windows domain part with it.
There have been various recommendations, ranging from adding a # to the end of the WebDAV URL when configuring your windows client up to a special apache authentication module which will cut the windows domain part from the transmitted credentials before handing them over to the WebDAV module. This guide will explain how you can configure your Apache2 server so it works with all clients - unmodified.
The most important thing first: You need SSL. Using an https:// URL makes Windows XP use WebDAV and goes around the authentication problem in its entirety.
In your <VirtualHost /> section for the SSL IP (see [[Configuring multiple domains in Apache2]] why you should have this) we will define two aliases for the WebDAV share:
Alias /webdav/ /var/www/ Alias /webdav /var/www
This avoids another common problem of WebDAV clients, including, but not limited to, Windows XP.
Of course we now need to tell apache that this directory is supposed to be accessed via WebDAV and that the server should require authentication before letting a user fiddle around in our sensitive web roots:
<Location /webdav>
DAV on
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
<LimitExcept OPTIONS>
AuthType Digest
AuthName "webdav"
AuthDigestFile /var/www/ssl-xy/conf/.htdigest
Require valid-user
</LimitExcept>
</Location>
That’s all, folks. No additional modules, no hazzle for the clients, no non-conforming server. Windows XP clients will now be able to access this WebDAV server as will any other WebDAV client.
This article originally appeared in my wiki, but since I’ve got different plans with that site now, I’ve just blogged it because I think it might be useful to some people 
October 30th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
This does not work for me. I have tried several suggestions and they all work with Mac as client, and none of them work with a PC as client.
Here’s how I applied the above suggestion (you leave out some details, my interpretation is as follows). This does work with OS X as client.
# Some MIME-types for downloading Certificates and CRLs
AddType application/x-x509-ca-cert .crt
AddType application/x-pkcs7-crl .crl
Listen 80
Listen 443
SSLCertificateFile /Library/WebServer/sslconf/cert-2001.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /Library/WebServer/sslconf/privkey-2001.pem
SSLRandomSeed startup builtin
SSLRandomSeed connect builtin
Alias /dav/ /Library/WebServer/Documents/
Alias /dav /Library/WebServer/Documents
SSLEngine on
DAV On
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AuthType Digest
AuthName “webdav”
AuthDigestFile “/Library/WebServer/sslconf/.htdigest”
Require valid-user
October 30th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I’m using the setup shown in my article on a gentoo linux machine running apache 2.0.58 and it works very well there. I’m connecting with a Windows XP SP2 client.
The key part seemed to be to allow the OPTIONS directive without requiring authentication first.
November 28th, 2006 at 2:52 am
I wish I had found this three weeks ago.
Some observations:
“AuthDigestFile” is invalid in Apache 2.2, use “AuthUserFile”
Make sure you create your digest user file, `htdigest -c ”
Here is my working configuation:
ServerName upload.my.domain
DAVLockDB /tmp/WebDavLock
DAVMinTimeout 300
DocumentRoot /usr/export/upload
Options None +Indexes
AllowOverride None
Allow from my.domain
Alias /public/ /usr/export/upload/PUBLIC/
Alias /public /usr/export/upload/PUBLIC
Dav filesystem
Allow from All
AuthType Digest
AuthName “my.domain”
AuthUserFile /usr/local/etc/apache22/.htpasswd-digest
Require valid-user
January 20th, 2007 at 1:08 am
This works for me, except I am not able to get a Microsoft Windows Vista Client to connect.
January 20th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
How do you set up WebDAV folder in Vista?
I have been looking in the Network Manager and various other pages, but there’s no trace of WebDAV to be found. After some googling I had come to the conclusion that WebDAV was removed from Windows Vista. O_o
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 am
vista webdav works through “map network drive”
for those who are encountering issues with logins (login works from browser but not through “map network drive”) try creating a username in UNC format test@test.com. this tricks windows into not passing the username in test.com\test format.
regards,
Rob.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I am doing it through map a network drive. Just to let you know this does work with a Windows XP Client, but not in vista.
Here are my config files
myfiles.domainname.com
NameVirtualHost *:80
ServerName myfiles.domainname.com
Serveralias www.myfiles.domainname.com
ServerAdmin root@domainname.com
DocumentRoot “/home”
ForceType text/plain
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/myfiles.domainname.com-error_log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/myfiles.domainname.com-access_log common
Dav On
DavMinTimeout 600
AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
#
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
AuthType Basic
AuthName “MyFiles.domainname.com WebDav Restricted”
AuthLDAPURL ldaps://127.0.0.1:636/ou=People,dc=domainname,dc=com
#require group webdav
Order deny,allow
deny from all
AccessFileName .htdavaccess
Logs
error_log — Nothing
access_log
66.114.184.107 - - [21/Jan/2007:21:41:54 -0600] “GET / HTTP/1.0″ 200 81
66.114.184.107 - - [21/Jan/2007:21:51:20 -0600] “GET / HTTP/1.0″ 200 81
66.114.184.107 - - [21/Jan/2007:22:01:18 -0600] “GET / HTTP/1.0″ 200 81
66.114.184.107 - - [21/Jan/2007:22:28:22 -0600] “GET / HTTP/1.0″ 200 81
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I forgot to say inside each homedir the following exists
.htdavaccess owned by root so user can’t change it
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Please login to Manage Files”
Require user uersname
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:30 am
Thanks for the info.
However why do I have to type in username & password twice (dialog window comes up twice) when I am accessing Webdav directory from windows xp (sp2) client?