Mac OSX Lion setup for WebDAV Navigator

There is a known issue with OSX Lion Server 10.7.3 that prevents renaming and copying files on the remote server. The problem is currently being investigated by Apple.

These instructions have been tested on OSX 10.7.2. To enable WebDAV sharing through your OSX computer follow these steps:

  • Enable the DAV extensions within Apache by editing the configuration file
  • Open Finder, press COMMAND-SHIFT-G, and enter /etc/apache2/
  • Locate the httpd.conf file and open it in a text editor.
  • Search for the line #Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf, and remove the # at the start of the line, save the file
  • Go back to Finder, press COMMAND-SHIFT-G, and then enter /etc/apache2/extra/
  • Locate the httpd-dav.conf file and open it in a text editor
  • Replace the content of the lines so that they look similar to the following, replace "seanashton" with your own username, and save: 
    DavLockDB "/usr/var/DavLock"
Alias /uploads "/usr/uploads"
<Directory "/usr/uploads">
    Dav On
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from all
    AuthType Digest
    AuthName DAV-upload
    # You can use the htdigest program to create the password database:
    #   htdigest -c "/usr/user.passwd" DAV-upload admin
    AuthUserFile "/usr/user.passwd"
    #AuthDigestProvider file
    
    # Allow universal read-access, but writes are restricted
    # to the admin user.
    <LimitExcept GET OPTIONS>
        require user seanashton
    </LimitExcept>
</Directory>
  • Launch the Terminal application to get to a command prompt
  • Execute the following commands: 
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/var/
sudo mkdir -p /usr/uploads        
sudo touch /usr/var/DavLock
sudo chown -R _www:_www /usr/var/DavLock
sudo chown -R _www:_www /usr/uploads
  • From the Terminal again you need to then create the user database, replace seanashton with your own username: 
    htdigest -c "/usr/user.passwd" DAV-upload seanashton
    You will be prompted to enter a password twice to confirm.
  • Launch the System Preferences application, click on Sharing
  • Locate the Web Sharing option. If it is already "On" then turn it off, before turning it "On" again. If it is already "Off" then turn it "On"
  • You should now be able to browse to the share by using your computers ip address at: http://{ip_address}/uploads
  • You will need to enter the username and password from above into WebDAV Navigator in order to correctly authenticate with the machine

Firewall considerations

OSX has a built-in firewall that may restrict incoming connections to your WebDAV server.

Apple has provided instructions at https://support.apple.com/kb/ht1810 which explain how to set access for specific applications and services.

If you have any third party applications that may also restrict incoming/outgoing connections you may need to configure those applications with exceptions as well.

Additional Reference

www.macgeneration.com (french)