Why use this WebDAV Nginx server?

This server is a single Nginx module attempting to be a fully-fledged WebDAV server in C. It's a fork of existing projects aiming to fix issues they had and merge the codebases. Specifically the goals of this project are:

• extremely easy setup configuration

• don't ruin the filesystem, the server filesystem looks like just as it does as a WebDAV mount, copy your files in or out and you're good to go

• APIs lenient enough to work with all clients in contrast to the native Nginx webdav module

• WebDAV PROPPATCH method

• WebDAV SEARCH method through xapian(?)

• etag checksums for more robust client syncing

• optional thumbnailing though cron jobs

• optional filesystem indexing for WebDAV SEARCH with cron jobs that uses noninvasive and compatible .index files

• optional locking and unlocking in redis

• functional testing suite

Was this written from zero?

The native nginx dav_module has been integrated with a few changes for client compatibility. This solves some very difficult problems with client compatibility:

- trailing slash issues for DELETE requests uris

- trailing slash issues for MOVE and COPY requests uris and destination headers

- trailing slash issues for MKCOL request uris

The community nginx_dav_ext_module is integrated as well for proper full WebDAV support.

Usage

There are a few reasonable ways of setting it up.

1. Standalone mode with authentication

    location / {
        auth_basic           "My closed site, go away!";
        auth_basic_user_file /usr/share/nginx/htpasswd;

        client_body_temp_path /var/nginx/webdav_client_temp;
        webdav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE PROPFIND OPTIONS LOCK UNLOCK;
        create_full_put_path  on;
        webdav_access            all:rw;
        webdav_lock zone=foo;

        root   /var/nginx/webdav;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

2. Managed mode with subrequest full cloud functionality with starfields-cloud

    location / {
        auth_request    /cloud/auth/;

        client_body_temp_path /var/nginx/webdav_client_temp;
        webdav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE PROPFIND OPTIONS LOCK UNLOCK;
        create_full_put_path  on;
        webdav_access            all:rw;
        webdav_lock zone=foo;

        root   /var/nginx/webdav;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    location = /cloud/auth/ {
        internal;

        proxy_pass_request_headers on;
        proxy_pass_request_body on;
        proxy_set_header X-Original-Method $request_method;
        proxy_set_header X-Original-URI $request_uri;
        proxy_pass  http://localhost:8000/api/v1/cloud/auth/;

        # OR
        # uwsgi_pass_request_headers on;
        # uwsgi_pass_request_body on;
        # uwsgi_param X-Original-Method $request_uri;
        # uwsgi_param X-Original-URI $request_uri;
        # uwsgi_pass unix:/path/to/my/django.sock;
    }

Directives

Directive	Specification	Context	Description
webdav_methods	[GET] [PUT] [MKCOL] [DELETE] [PROPFIND] [OPTIONS] [LOCK] [UNLOCK]	http, server, location	Allowed HTTP methods
create_full_put_path	(on | off)	http, server, location	Whether to allow creating all needed intermediate directories during an PUT request
webdav_access	users:permissions	http, server, location	Sets access permissions for newly created files and directories
min_delete_depth number	(0 | 1 | 2 | ...)	http, server, location	Allows the DELETE method to remove files provided that the number of elements in a request path is not less than the specified number
webdav_lock	dav_ext_lock zone=NAME	http, server, location	Enables WebDAV locking in the specified scope
webdav_lock_zone	zone=NAME:SIZE [timeout=TIMEOUT]	http	Defines a shared zone for WebDAV locks with specified NAME and SIZE. Also, defines a lock expiration TIMEOUT. Default lock timeout value is 1 minute.

Building

1. After cloning this repository in $gitdir clone the nginx source code in $gitdir/nginx

2. cd $gitdir/nginx

3. ./configure --add-dynamic-module=../../nginx-sf-webdav-module/' --with-compat

4. make

5. then the module is in $gitdir/nginx/objs/ngx_http_webdav_module.so

to compile the module statically just replace --add-dynamic-module with --add-module

Requirements

• nginx version >= 1.13.4

• libxml2 + libxslt

The libxslt library is technically redundant and is only required since this combination is supported by nginx for the xslt module. Using builtin nginx mechanisms for linking against third-party libraries brings certain compatibility benefits. However this redundancy can be easily eliminated in the config file.

Locking

• Only the exclusive write locks are supported, which is the only type of locks described in the WebDAV specification.

• All currently held locks are kept in a list. Checking if an object is constrained by a lock requires O(n) operations. A huge number of simultaneously held locks may degrade performance. Thus it is not recommended to have a large lock timeout which would increase the number of locks.

Testing

TODO