IIS 7 DAV LOCK und Apple OS X

While trying to access a Windows Server 2008 WebDAV Share with Apple OS X I was only able to get read access. After some research it looks like this is the explanation:

I suspect this has to do with the WebDAV server
implementation. When you mount a DAV file system
on the Mac, it is using /sbin/mount_webdav
under-the-hood. The manual page states the
following:

> If connecting to a Class 1 compliant WebDAV
> server, the rdonly option will be set even if it
> was not specified because mount_webdav will
> not allow files to be opened with write access
> on servers which do not support the
> DAV LOCK method

I read somewhere recently that the IIS 7 WebDAV extension does not currently implement locking, which means OS X clients cannot write.

Hello Redmond? True? Why?

There is a discussion on IIS.NET, but currently there is no solution.

[Update] It looks like Microsoft is aware of this issue. There are some very interesting posts in the comments of an old IIS 7 Team blog article - Julian Reschke is again doing a great job.

What the heck is a SharePoint Protocol?

I have found this very good article about the inside out of the "Sharepoint Protocol", which is very much WebDAV-related but not quite the same. Just see for yourself, it's based on the technical details of what Alfresco is doing - if you don't know Alfresco and have not already deployed Sharepoint you should really have a look at this very interesting product.

Source: What the heck is a SharePoint-Protocol

Inside SharePoint Integrating Office Applications

Very detailed article about the "inside" of Microsoft Sharpoint 2007, especially about the WebDAV Client Redirector architecture. Even better, there is a code download included to get around some of the shortcomings of the current Sharpoint Client communication possibilities:

Source:
Inside SharePoint Integrating Office Applications

Update on WebDAV Credentials in Vista

Here's another good article about the WebClient Credential issue on Windows Vista with some more details:

Source:  Prompted for Credentials when Accessing Documents in MOSS 2007

Windows Vista / Windows 2003 and WebDAV over HTTP (not S)

There's a good article about the problem to do a WebDAV connection without SSL on Vista / Win2003:

SharePint, WebDAV, and http (not https)

Here's the abstract:

1. Fire up regedit.exe (if UAC is enabled you'll have to approve it of course)
2. Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
   SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
3. Change the setting BasicAuthLevel from its current value (default 1) to 2 (0 means disabled, 1 is https only, 2 is both http and https)
4. Enter the following commands:
   1. net stop webclient
   2. net start webclient
   3. net use x: "http://yoursharepointprovider.tld/somesharename" /user:"whateverdomain\yourusername" /persistent:yes
   4. Enter your password when prompted

Update:

For Windows 2003 server the DWORD value you must add to the registry under the Parameters key above is UseBasicAuth and set its value to 1 and you'll also want to update the AcceptOfficeAndTahoeServers key from 0 to 1.  You cannot just net stop/start webclient; instead you must net stop mrxdav then net start webclient.  I found this out from KB841215.

A bit Off Topic: Virtual Tape Driver

Last week I was searching for a solution how to do "Cloud Backup" in a datacenter. This is not directly related to WebDAV, but what other reliable file protocol would anyone use when storing file based data on a remote storage solution - especially if the storage solution is something "in the cloud" like Amazon S3 or similar.

Well, the first question was about how to do a good Windows 2003 / Windows 2008 backup - eventually with Microsoft Data Protection Manager (Microsoft DPM) - when there is no tape infrastructure. All the Microsoft tools want to have some kind of tape. But tapes in datacenter clouds... not good.

Here's what I have found last week, I am now running a test pilot but it looks like a perfect solution: Virtual Tape Driver.

Firestreamer Virtual Tape Driver for Microsoft Data Protection Manager / Microsoft Backup

It supports not only all kind of physical media but also network shares, NAS and.... WebDAV.

Maybe some of you may have the same situation and this information could help.

EFS in Teams on Network Shares

Hi,

today I have found a great article about productive usage of EFS in teams. I mean everyone who have ever tried to use EFS in a multi-user environment may have seen the same unbelievable shortcomings: SMB EFS works with server based profiles with a bunch of issues as a result of this concept. And even with WebDAV there is still a major issue: multi-user server shares with EFS will not work because you can't inherit the EFS "ACL" and a new file will only be decryptable by the file owner. No comment.

Well, here's the link:
http://geisbauer.blogspot.com/2008/06/sharepoint-dateien-verschlsseln-teil-1.html
http://geisbauer.blogspot.com/2008/06/sharepoint-dateien-verschlsseln-teil-2.html

But sorry... it's in German. Maybe some of you folks can read it?

Joelle