WebDAV#Microsoft Windows

WebDAV began in 1996 when Jim Whitehead worked with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to host two meetings to discuss the problem of distributed authoring on the World Wide Web with interested people.{{cite web|url= http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1996AprJun/0002.html|title= Proposed agenda for San Mateo Meeting|year= 1996}}{{cite web|url= http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1996JulSep/0095.html|title= Brief mtg. summary|year= 1996}} Tim Berners-Lee's original vision of the Web involved a medium for both reading and writing. In fact, Berners-Lee's first web browser, called WorldWideWeb, could both view and edit web pages; but, as the Web grew, it became a read-only medium for most users. Whitehead and other like-minded people wanted to transcend that limitation.{{cite web

|url= http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1996JulSep/0001.html

|title= Re: Updated agenda}}

{{sfn|Whitehead|1998|p=40}}

The meetings resulted in the formation of an IETF working group because the new effort would lead to extensions to HTTP, which the IETF had started to standardize.

As work began on the protocol, it became clear that handling both distributed authoring and versioning together would involve too much work and that the tasks would have to be separated. The WebDAV group focused on distributed authoring, and left versioning for the future. (The Delta-V extension added versioning later{{snd}} see the Extensions section below.)

The WebDAV working group concluded its work in March 2007, after the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) accepted an incremental update to {{IETF RFC|2518}}. Other extensions left unfinished at that time, such as the BIND method, have been finished by their individual authors, independent of the formal working group.{{sfn|Whitehead|1998|p=39-40}}

File:WebDAV collaborative authoring.png in a compatible HTTP server]]

WebDAV extends the set of standard HTTP verbs and headers allowed for request methods. The added verbs include:

{{clear}}

The properties of WebDAV protocol are name–value pair, in which a "name" is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and the "values" are expressed through XML elements. Furthermore, the methods to handle the properties are PROPFIND and PROPPATCH.{{sfn|Whitehead|Goland|1999|p=299}}

The WebDAV working group produced several works:

• a requirements document: "Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web" {{IETF RFC|2291}}, issued February 1998
• a base protocol document (excluding versioning, despite its title): "HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)" {{IETF RFC|4918}}, issued June 2007 (which updates and supersedes "HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring{{snd}} WebDAV" {{IETF RFC|2518}}, issued February 1999)
• the ordered collections protocol: "Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Ordered Collections Protocol" {{IETF RFC|3648}}, issued December 2003
• the access control protocol: "Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Access Control Protocol" {{IETF RFC|3744}}, issued May 2004
• a quota specification: "Quota and Size Properties for Distributed Authoring and Versioning (DAV) Collections" {{IETF RFC|4331}}, issued February 2006
• a redirect specification: "Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Redirect Reference Resources" {{IETF RFC|4437}}, issued March 2006

• the versioning protocol: "Versioning Extensions to WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning)" {{IETF RFC|3253}} (created by the Delta-V working group)
• a specification of WebDAV property datatypes: "Datatypes for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Properties" {{IETF RFC|4316}}
• a document defining how to initiate mounting of a WebDAV resource: "Mounting Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Servers" {{IETF RFC|4709}}
• a calendar access protocol: "Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV (CalDAV)" {{IETF RFC|4791}}
• a query protocol: "Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) SEARCH" {{IETF RFC|5323}}
• an extension to the WebDAV ACL specification: "WebDAV Current Principal Extension" {{IETF RFC|5397}}
• an extension to the WebDAV MKCOL method: "Extended MKCOL for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)" {{IETF RFC|5689}}
• an extension of the collection model, defining creation and discovery of additional bindings to a resource: "Binding Extensions to Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)" {{IETF RFC|5842}}
• an application of POST to WebDAV collections: "Using POST to Add Members to Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Collections" {{IETF RFC|5995}}
• an extension which allows synchronizing large collections efficiently: "Collection Synchronization for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)" {{IETF RFC|6578}}

For versioning, the Delta-V protocol under the Web Versioning and Configuration Management working group adds resource revision tracking, published in {{IETF RFC|3253}}.

For searching and locating, the DAV Searching and Locating (DASL) working group never produced any official standard although there are a number of implementations of its last draft. Work continued as non-working-group activity.[http://www.webdav.org/dasl DASL] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040603051812/http://www.webdav.org/dasl/ |date=2004-06-03 }} The WebDAV Search specification attempts to pick up where the working group left off, and was published as {{IETF RFC|5323}} in November 2008.[http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-search-latest.html WebDav SEARCH]

For calendaring, CalDAV is a protocol allowing calendar access via WebDAV. CalDAV models calendar events as HTTP resources in iCalendar format, and models calendars containing events as WebDAV collections.

For groupware, GroupDAV is a variant of WebDAV which allows client/server groupware systems to store and fetch objects such as calendar items and address book entries instead of web pages.

For MS Exchange interoperability, WebDAV can be used for reading/updating/deleting items in a mailbox or public folder. WebDAV for Exchange has been extended by Microsoft to accommodate working with messaging data. Exchange Server version 2000, 2003, and 2007 support WebDAV. However, WebDAV support has been discontinued in Exchange 2010[https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998911.aspx Discontinued Features: Exchange 2010 SP1 Help] Microsoft TechNet in favor of Exchange Web Services (EWS), a SOAP/XML based API.

{{See also|Microsoft Open Specification Promise}}

As part of the Windows Server Protocols (WSPP) documentation set,{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964399.aspx|title=WSPP – Windows Server Protocols documentation|year=2011}} Microsoft published the following protocol documents detailing extensions to WebDAV:

• [MS-WDVME]: Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Microsoft Extensions.{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj557055.aspx|title=MS-WDVME – Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Microsoft Extensions|year=2014}} These extensions include a new verb and new headers, and properties that enable previously unmanageable file types and optimize protocol interactions for file system clients. These extensions introduce new functionality into WebDAV, optimize processing, and eliminate the need for special-case processing.
• [MS-WDV]: Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Client Extensions.{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc250046.aspx|title=MS-WDV – Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Client Extensions|year=2011}} The client extensions in this specification extend the WebDAV Protocol by introducing new headers that both enable the file types that are not currently manageable and optimize protocol interactions for file system clients. These extensions do not introduce new functionality into the WebDAV Protocol, but instead optimize processing and eliminate the need for special-case processing.
• [MS-WDVSE]: Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Server Extensions.{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc250200.aspx|title=MS-WDVSE – Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Server Extensions|year=2011}} The server extensions in this specification extend WebDAV by introducing new HTTP request and response headers that both enable the file types that are not currently manageable and optimize protocol interactions for file system clients. This specification also introduces a new WebDAV method that is used to send search queries to disparate search providers.
• [MS-WEBDAVE]: Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning Error Extensions Protocol Specification.{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313126.aspx|title=MS-WEBDAVE – Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning Error Extensions Protocol Specification|year=2011}} This SharePoint Front-End Protocol describes extended error codes and extended error handling mechanism specified in [MS-WDV] to enable compliant servers to report error condition details on a server response.

• File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a simple and widely adopted network protocol based on IP, allows users to transfer files between network hosts. FTPS extends FTP for secure traffic.
• SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), an extension of the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) version 2.0, provides secure file-transfer capability; and scp, a form of SFTP that runs as a single command similar to a regular cp (copy) command in the shell.
• Rsync, a protocol and a command similar to scp, that can also skip rewriting identical files and portions of files, or skip newer files, etc.
• A distributed file system such as the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol allows Microsoft Windows and open-source Samba clients to access and manage files and folders remotely on a suitable file server. Commonly used for multimedia streaming over Ethernet and widely supported by Smart TVs.{{Cite web|last=Rau|first=Thomas|date=2017-10-19|title=Filme, Musik & Bilder im Heimnetzwerk streamen|url=https://www.pcwelt.de/ratgeber/Media-Streaming-im-Heimnetz-8814285.html|access-date=2020-11-05|website=PC-WELT|language=de-DE}}
• AtomPub, an HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources, can be used for some of the use cases of WebDAV. It is based on standard HTTP verbs with standardized collection resources that behave somewhat like the WebDAV model of directories.
• CMIS, a standard consisting of a set of Web services for sharing information among disparate content repositories, seeks to ensure interoperability for people and applications using multiple content repositories; it has both SOAP- and AtomPub-based interfaces
• Wiki software, such as MediaWiki.
• Linked Data Platform (LDP), a Linked Data specification defining a set of integration patterns for building RESTful HTTP services that are capable of read-write of RDF data.
• Object storage such as OpenStack Swift or Amazon S3

• CalDAV
• CardDAV
• GroupDAV
• Content management
• Comparison of WebDAV software
• Distributed file system
• Open service interface definition
• ICE
• Data portability

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|isbn=978-94-011-4441-4|doi=10.1007/978-94-011-4441-4_16|first1=E. James|last1=Whitehead|first2=Yaron Y.|last2=Goland|title=Ecscw' 99 |chapter=WebDAV |pages=291–310 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-011-4441-4|publisher=Springer Science+Business Media|year=1999|location=Neatherlands|language=en-US}}
• {{cite journal|journal=IEEE Internet Computing|year=1998|doi= 10.1109/4236.722228|issn=1941-0131|volume=2|issue=5|title=WebDAV: IEFT standard for collaborative authoring on the Web|first=E.J|last=Whitehead|pages=34–40 |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/722228|access-date=12 October 2021}}

• [http://webdav.org/ Official WebDAV site]
• [https://github.com/fstanis/awesome-webdav Awesome WebDAV] A curated list of awesome apps that support WebDAV and tools related to it.
• [http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2 Davfs2 project]
• [http://0pointer.de/lennart/projects/fusedav Fusedav project]
• [http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_dav.html WebDAV Apache modules]

{{Web interfaces}}

{{URI scheme}}

{{Authority control}}

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Category:Internet protocols

Category:World Wide Web Consortium standards

Category:Working groups

Category:Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Category:Collaborative software

Category:Network file systems