initial setup for webdav - best practices -questions

[Aliş Sağıroğlu]

Hi

First of all let me thank you for this good work which seems to help a lot of people. I am a philosophy professor and  moderately computer literate. I  want to create a webdav folder mainly with the purpose of syncing with my zotero collection (a lot of pdfs.) Webdav capability of Mangoose was such an unique and valuable  point of selling for me that I purchased pro version without hesitation. I would like to  see more discussions about  the Webdav issues. In mailing list I found  only a few posts related to Webdav.

I consulted all docs available in your site. I wanted to do my home work properly before asking questions. Unfortunately after 4 days of playing with Mangoose I failed to make it work as a simple Webdav. I need apparently some help. I hope that my questions once clarified, will help other people similar to my profile to set up up a  Webdav. I am even willing to write a complete newby guide with pictures etc once I can get it work  for myself. I presume that only a newby can understand newby problems :)

My initial setup: Server (Fresh install fully updated) is on win 7 pro 64 Bit and client on Win 8.1 64 bit. Machines on local network with home sharing on. Static IP pointing to cable modem with a domain attached to it. Static internal IP assigned to server and ports 80 and 443 routed in modem. Port triggering on. Modem and  computers firewalls off and ms security essentials on. All connections Wifi. Tests are made with win pro-version of Mangoose.

What is the best practices for: ?

Server related questions
1- What is the best platform to start with? My server machine is a win 7 pro 64 Bit. But if it is advised to switch to another OS no prob. What about 64 bit?
1.1- What is the practical difference for me to get it work as a win service?
1.1.1- Who should be the win service user?
1.2- Best firewall configuration (I started to play with mangoose with firewall off.) Besides ports 80, 8080 and 443 and Mangoose itself do I need to authorise other things?
1.3- Would Mangoose function better on 8080?
1.4- What is the difference  between choosing my domain as localhost or as somedomain.com. (I have a static IP for my server and a domain name pointing to it)
1.5- I need only a Webdav acces and each time I am manually getting rid of index entry in preferences and then refresh to get files displayed. Mangoose keeps to fill index entry to each restart. Do I missing something?
1.6- I created a .passwrd file with success (with my domain name). I named it .passwrd  and it functions correctly on server side. Can I name it differently?
1.7- Use mangoose with administrative rights or not? (I  start it always with administrative rights)
1.8- What about win permissions?
1.9- I experimented with port 80 in so far as. Besides usual security concerns, is using port 80, a problem for connecting dav clients?
1.10- Is there best locations for Webdav folders. Mine was on desktop.
1.11- Some config fields mentioned in reference doc are not shown in my setup. Only 1 is marked unix-only. More than 1 unix only-fields?
1.12- Is it sensible to foreign language characters in folder and file names? (I limited myself to english in so far.  Turkish French and English mixedly in file names)
1.13- Is there file number limitations or folder nesting limits?
1.14- How many concurrent clients?
1.15- Known incompatibilies with anti-virus or other apps?

In so far I succeded to make webdav clients display remote file list after login auth. But update or  upload does not work.

Client related questions
2- Is there known issues with getting dav clients work on win 8?
2.1- What is the best client app? I tried it with netdrive, carotdrive and official win client.
2.2- I never succeed to  upload files  (create a folder works) in dav clients. Usually zero bytes transfers are made and empty files are created with correct names.
2.3- Is Mangoose really fully Webdav compliant or  is it only for read only Webdavs?
2.4- Is there a fully working upload capable Webdav setup exemple? With a  downloadable folder with all essentials in?

Other issues

I am  well aware that my issues can be related to my network or router setup too. But I can make for example barracudadrive work as a webdav server with his own browser interface on my client. I can mount onedrive as webdav which only shows that my client is webdav capable. I wanted to be more informed on Mangoose side before troubleshooting on my network setup.

Thanks

 

[Sergey Lyubka]

Hi Aliş,

On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Aliş Sağıroğlu <alissa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi

My initial setup: Server (Fresh install fully updated) is on win 7 pro 64 Bit and client on Win 8.1 64 bit. Machines on local network with home sharing on. Static IP pointing to cable modem with a domain attached to it. Static internal IP assigned to server and ports 80 and 443 routed in modem. Port triggering on. Modem and  computers firewalls off and ms security essentials on. All connections Wifi. Tests are made with win pro-version of Mangoose.

What is the best practices for: ?

Server related questions
1- What is the best platform to start with? My server machine is a win 7 pro 64 Bit. But if it is advised to switch to another OS no prob. What about 64 bit?

OS doesn't matter. Mongoose is cross-platform.

 

1.1- What is the practical difference for me to get it work as a win service?

No difference.

 

1.1.1- Who should be the win service user?

Doesn't matter.

 

1.2- Best firewall configuration (I started to play with mangoose with firewall off.) Besides ports 80, 8080 and 443 and Mangoose itself do I need to authorise other things?

As soon as you can access HTTP port, FW config and listening port don't matter.

 

1.3- Would Mangoose function better on 8080?

See above.

 

1.4- What is the difference  between choosing my domain as localhost or as somedomain.com. (I have a static IP for my server and a domain name pointing to it)

Domain name affect digest auth, if configured. You can create an .htpassd file in any directory, and mongoose will automatically protect that directory with MD5 authentication mechanism. In that case, domain name in .htpasswd file and the domain name in browser address bar must match.

 

1.5- I need only a Webdav acces and each time I am manually getting rid of index entry in preferences and then refresh to get files displayed. Mangoose keeps to fill index entry to each restart. Do I missing something?

Please elaborate. What index entry Mongoose keeps filling in? Mongoose doesn't create or edit anything in the filesystem other then log files which is turned off by default.

 

1.6- I created a .passwrd file with success (with my domain name). I named it .passwrd  and it functions correctly on server side. Can I name it differently?

Password file name must be called ".htpasswd"

 

1.7- Use mangoose with administrative rights or not? (I  start it always with administrative rights)

Never give admin rights to network servers.

Do NOT start mongoose with admin rights.

 

1.8- What about win permissions?

Win permissions for what?

 

1.9- I experimented with port 80 in so far as. Besides usual security concerns, is using port 80, a problem for connecting dav clients?

No.

 

1.10- Is there best locations for Webdav folders. Mine was on desktop.

That I am not aware of.

 

1.11- Some config fields mentioned in reference doc are not shown in my setup. Only 1 is marked unix-only. More than 1 unix only-fields?

Other ones are SSL related. Cesanta Mongoose binary is built without SSL support.

 

1.12- Is it sensible to foreign language characters in folder and file names? (I limited myself to english in so far.  Turkish French and English mixedly in file names)

Cesanta Mongoose binaries are handling Unicode well, you can use non-English chars.

 

1.13- Is there file number limitations or folder nesting limits?

There is a limit on file name length, imposed by the OS. Windows has PATH_MAX ranging from 260 to 32768 bytes, depending on a runtime (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/930f87yf.aspx).

 

1.14- How many concurrent clients?

See here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms739169(v=vs.85).aspx

 

1.15- Known incompatibilies with anti-virus or other apps?

Many antivirus programs mark Mongoose as a threat, that is a false positive.

 

In so far I succeded to make webdav clients display remote file list after login auth. But update or  upload does not work.

Client related questions
2- Is there known issues with getting dav clients work on win 8?

Depends on a client.

 

2.1- What is the best client app? I tried it with netdrive, carotdrive and official win client.

That I don't know. I was using command-line curl in automation scripts.

Other client I have tested are Windows native and MacOS native.

They both work in read-only mode, i.e. they allow to read files & dirs, but not alter them.

That is because of the implementation of write support, wich is wildly different and complex

in both cases - they use elaborate locking mechanism.

Curl, on the other hand, does MD5 auth with DAV and thus able to work as read-write DAV client.

I don't know about other clients. If they could be configured to use MD5 auth password file, then they could also support write mode.

 

2.2- I never succeed to  upload files  (create a folder works) in dav clients. Usually zero bytes transfers are made and empty files are created with correct names.

Expected, see above.

 

2.3- Is Mangoose really fully Webdav compliant or  is it only for read only Webdavs?

See above.

 

2.4- Is there a fully working upload capable Webdav setup exemple? With a  downloadable folder with all essentials in?

See above.

 

Other issues

I am  well aware that my issues can be related to my network or router setup too. But I can make for example barracudadrive work as a webdav server with his own browser interface on my client. I can mount onedrive as webdav which only shows that my client is webdav capable. I wanted to be more informed on Mangoose side before troubleshooting on my network setup.

Thanks

Thanks for your elaborate overview.

Please try out other dav clients for write support, I'd like to know the results.

Could you also shed a light what is exactly your use case for DAV, please?

Regards

[Aliş Sağıroğlu]

Hi Sergey

Really thanks to  reply in such a detailed manner. Specially your answer for question 2.1  sheds some clarity for the zerobyte  write problem to  webdav folder. As it is immediately clear this is not a Mangoose issue. In fact I replicated the same problem with Mac os x serveras well as with Barracuda drive. With win clients I mentioned  I cannot write to a webdav folder and get again zero byte files created. However on iphone ios with a client named Webdav Nav I can upload.

The real question becomes for me  then how to find a client under windows which would be compatible with  MD5 auth password file. A majority of rookies like me are under windows and thus they need a practical solution. You  could maybe  write yourself such a client. Personally I would purchase a pro version of it immediately and I think that there is is a lot of people waiting for such a solution. Mangoose bundled with his own win client would then shine above all.

I will experiment with curl in windows.

As I mentioned earlier I am an active zotero user and  this is the facto standard reference manager for somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million of academic users. Zotero needs a webdav acces to sync and yet there is no solution yet other than costly online commercial offerings. Besides cost there is also the more real issue of data security, like spy agencies mining your sensitive research data etc. Zotero is the tip of iceberg. There is a lot of different usage scenarios.To sum up, there is a  very real market for such a solution.

Some other clarifications:

1.5- I need only a Webdav acces and each time I am manually getting rid of index entry in preferences and then refresh to get files displayed. Mangoose keeps to fill index entry to each restart. Do I missing something?

When  you place and index file in Webdav folder mangoose defaults to it when restarted. Simple solution: instead of trying to disable it in configuration each time just dont put an index file there. (If I dont want it displayed why I should keep it there?)

1.8- What about win permissions?

The folder must be shared or not in  windows with special permissions? In IIS this seems very important this is why I asked this question by analogy.

Thanks again and cheers for open zource sprit

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[Aliş Sağıroğlu]

A few more words on my use case.

Open source reference manager Zotero is for me  an essential professional tool.  I keep there nearly 20 gigabyte of academic papers mostly PDFs. A lot of them is extensively annatoted.  I keep there also  a catalogue of my papers, notes of my ideas and more. Zotero is itself a front face to a local sql database keeping track of huge numbers of attachements. It offers good functions of tagging, nested folders etc. It has word pocessor integration, cite in one click, offers translators to many sites as Jstor to download papers fully reference ready etc. Without zotero I would be lost in such a huge collection of data. In a sense it is similar to github for what u do but  with more bangs. It is a good step  for semantic web. (It makes my local data semantic to start with...)

Naturally I use zotero in multiple machines, home, tablet, work, phone etc. I utilise dropbox to sync zotero sqlite data file and it is a very bad solution. As my sqlite data base is now over 60 MB in dropbox I get a lot of duplicates. Actually I am obliged to wait the end of sync before touching it on another machine. Sometimes  I  lose information because of this problem. Zotero is designed to work  from the unset with a live sql database in  Webdav. It would update a few bytes and voila. For dropbox this is just another dead file and it syncs madly the whole database accros the net at each click of keyboard again and again.  This keeps dropbox in an never ending update cycle.

Nearly all of my collegues are in the same ship and I know that internationally it is the same may be except in a few wealthy universites. I have commercial clouds too. But they are very shy of webdav because this is contrary to their business logic. For exemple I have 1 terabyte of Onedrive which does not work  with zotero. I have a web site with unlimited storage but who prohibits me to backup my personal files (Bluehost). I spend a few hundred dollars yearly to commercial solutions to find myself in locked in situations and they dont serve me well. I am very tired of all this and this is why I focused on Mangoose.

Please consider that zotero will be my ultimate webdav client. Actually I did not test this part of the equation  but I will. I wanted to master first the general setup.