WebDAV + SSL on Debian

I was looking for a way to easily share documents between machines, since WebDAV shares can be accessed by Windows, Linux or Mac machines out of the box, I choose WebDAV over SSL. I don't use SSL for anything so WebDAV is served from DocumentRoot. I've been using it for a few days, so far it beats carrying USB sticks around.

Enable relevant Apache modules,

a2enmod ssl
a2enmod dav_fs
a2enmod dav

Create SSL certificate,

 mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
 openssl req $@ -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem \
     -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem
 chmod 600 /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem

Create your WebDAV directory and create a password file,

mkdir /path/to/webdav/
chown www-data /path/to/webdav/
htpasswd -c /path/to/passwd.dav user

Edit and add the following snippet to the configuration for the host you want to enable WebDAV,

 <VirtualHost *:443>
         ServerAdmin [email protected]
         DocumentRoot /path/to/webdav

         SSLEngine on
         SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem

         <Directory /path/to/webdav/>
            DAV On
            AuthType Basic
            AuthName "webdav"
            AuthUserFile /path/to/passwd.dav
            Require valid-user
        </Directory>

         ErrorLog  /path/to/webdav/error.log
         CustomLog /path/to/webdav/access.log combined
 </VirtualHost>

Reload Apache configuration,

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload
Tags: debian linux webdav ssl