Deployment issues
15
WebDAV
Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is a series of extensions to the
HTTP protocol that lets users collaboratively update and manage files on a website. A key feature
of the WebDAV protocol is file locking. Users connecting to a WebDAV-enabled site lock files
when they open the file for editing. This prevents a user of the same website from overwriting
another user’s changes.
To use Contribute with a WebDAV-enabled site, you must use a WebDAV server that supports
exclusive write locks
. Exclusive write locks guarantee that only the lock owner (the person who
opened the file for editing) can overwrite the file.
Note:
Some WebDAV servers support
shared write locks
, which allow two or more users to
collaborate concurrently on a web page. Contribute does not support shared write locks. If a user
opens a page using Contribute on a WebDAV-enabled site that uses shared locks, Contribute opens
the file only if it can create an exclusive lock. If another user is editing the file, Contribute informs the
user that the file is not available for editing.
When creating a connection to a WebDAV-enabled site, you must provide a WebDAV-specific
URL. This might consist of a specific port number used by the WebDAV site. For example,
suppose that this is the URL of your site:
www.mysite.com/
This might be the WebDAV URL:
www.mysite:81.com/
Appending the port number 81 to the site’s domain name specifies the network address used by
WebDAV.
WebDAV-enabled sites often have their own user name and password requirements. You can
create these on an individual basis, or you can create a group user name and password.
When creating a connection to a WebDAV site, you must not mix connection types (such as FTP
with WebDAV or local area network with WebDAV). You must use only the WebDAV
connection type. When you create a connection to a website using local area network, FTP, or
SFTP connections, Contribute uses its own file-locking mechanism to prevent users from
overwriting each other’s files. Contribute connections using these connection types cannot detect
files locked with WebDAV locks and could inadvertently open a file being edited by a WebDAV-
enabled connection.
To prevent users from setting up different connection types to a WebDAV-enabled site, do
one of the following:
•
Tell users creating connections that they should use only the WebDAV connection type with
WebDAV-enabled sites.
•
Send a connection key that allows only users connecting to the site to use WebDAV.
•
Restrict local area network, FTP, and SFTP access to the server hosting the WebDAV-enabled
site.
For more information on WebDAV, see the WebDav Resources website at
www.webdav.org
.
