Now that I have dynamic DNS working, I gave WebDAV another try. My goal was to connect from WindowsXP using the “Add Network Place” wizard.

There is a good overview of using WebDAV folders in Version Control with Subversion (the “SVN book”), Appendix C . After reading this, I reviewed the mod_dav and mod_dav_fs sections of the Apache documentation and the mod_dav_svn chapter of the SVN book.

WebDAV Installation Testing Process:

• I learned from Appendix C that Konqueror (KDE file browser) uses an (undocumented?) webdav: scheme to browse webDAV folders. My first goal was connecting to webdav://localhost/fs using Konqueror. This worked; I was able to drag & drop files in and out of the folder.
• Next I connected using my dynamic DNS address. This proved that the Apache mod_dav configuration, virtual hosts, and ZyXEL port forwarding were are all working. (Note: port translation caused this step to fail).
• Windows XP ran through the “Add New Network Place” wizard and even requested a username and password, but then failed. Numerous pages on the web describe this scenario and suggest complicated workarounds. Once again the SVN book offered a solution: add a port number to the URL. This worked — I added http://xxx.no-ip.org:80/fs as a new Network Place. I was now able to drag & drop using the WindowsXP browser.
• However there was a problem, again described and solved in the SVN book: “Microsoft released a bug-fixed version of XP Web Folders in January 2005, available at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=892211. In particular, this release is known to fix a bug whereby browsing a DAV share shows an unexpected infinite recursion.” I installed this update and the recursion problem was solved.
• Next I decided to see if FrontPage could publish to a WebDAV folder. I created a one-page web site which I then tried to publish using the WebDAV option. Password validation occurred and the local/remote window appeared, but the Publish action failed. Found the following Caveat, “Microsoft FrontPage insists on the presence of FrontPage server extensions for saving files back to a web server, despite using Web Folders. Other Office products as well as Web Folders are completely interoperable with mod_dav, though.” Indeed the Apache error log noted that files in _vti_bin weren’t found and that’s where FrontPage extensions are kept.

The next post presents the section of the Apache config file dealing with WebDAV and Subversion.