241 lines
9.4 KiB
Plaintext
241 lines
9.4 KiB
Plaintext
2009-04-12
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# Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Werner Baumann
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# Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are
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# permitted in any medium without royalty.
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DAVFS2 1.4.0 README
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===================
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1 INTRODUCTION
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1.1 WHAT DAVFS2 IS INTENDED FOR
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1.2 WHAT DAVFS2 IS NOT INTENDED FOR
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2 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
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3 MOUNTING
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4 TLS / SSL
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5 CACHE
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6 TROUBLE SHOOTING
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7 KNOWN ISSUES
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8 CONTACT
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1 INTRODUCTION
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==============
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davfs2 is a Linux file system driver that allows you to mount a WebDAV
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resource into your Unix file system tree. So - and that is what makes
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davfs2 different - applications can use it without knowing about WebDAV.
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You may edit WebDAV resources using standard applications that interact
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with the file system as usual.
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davfs2 supports SSL and proxy, HTTP authentication (basic and digest)
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and client certificates.
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1.1 WHAT DAVFS2 IS INTENDED FOR
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-------------------------------
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- If you have documents you want to access from different locations, store
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them on a WebDAV server accessible via Internet. Mount them with davfs2
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from wherever you want.
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- Use a WebDAV server as workspace for a geographically distributed work group.
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- A web site may be made accessible to the developers via WebDAV. So they
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can mount with davfs2 and edit in place.
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1.2 WHAT DAVFS2 IS NOT INTENDED FOR
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-----------------------------------
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davfs2 is not intended as a replacement for distributed file systems like
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nfs, coda, cifs and similar.
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When davfs2 mounts a resource, it authenticates with the server using the
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user-name and password it got from the mounting user. All requests to the
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server are done on behalf of this WebDAV user. davfs2 does not handle different
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WebDAV users within one mount. But this would be required for a distributed
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file system.
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davfs2 is not a generic WebDAV client. davfs2 maps a WebDAV resource to a file
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system. But as the file system interface and the WebDAV protocol are quite
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different, this is not possible without losses. As a file system davfs2 cannot
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use all the possibilities of WebDAV, and most WebDAV servers do not provide all
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the information a file system usually requires.
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A specialised application with built-in WebDAV capabilities should be able to
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make better use of the WebDAV protocol. Whether it really does, depends on the
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implementation. But if a free WebDAV enabled application is available, you
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might try it first.
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2 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
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=========================
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To allow non-root users mounting of WebDAV resources, mount.davfs is run
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setuid root. To prevent inexperienced (or even malicious) users from introducing
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dangerous content into system directories or other users home directory,
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the administrator must have control over user mounts.
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- Non-root users can only mount using the normal mount program. There must
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also be an entry in /etc/fstab. This can only be done by root.
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- To mount a WebDAV resource users must be member of dav_group (default is
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group 'davfs2'). The administrator may use group membership to allow or
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disallow mounting of WebDAV resources.
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mount.davfs starts with effective user-id 'root' to be able to mount. After
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mounting it changes its id permanently to that of the mounting user. When
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the mounting user is root, the mount.davfs daemon will run as user 'davfs2'.
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3 MOUNTING
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==========
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davfs2 comes with three manuals: mount.davfs, umount.davfs and davfs2.conf.
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When a normal user mounts a davfs2 file system for the first time, there
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is not yet a user configuration file and a secrets file. So you will be asked
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for the credentials. mount.davfs will create a hidden directory .davfs2 in
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the users home directory, that holds configuration files, the cache and
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certificates. You will want to edit this files afterwards.
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If you update from an older version, these files already exist and davfs2
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will not touch them. To allow mount.davfs installation of newer versions,
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you might rename davfs2.conf and secrets and merge your changes into the
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new versions.
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GUIs like Gnome and KDE provide means to mount file systems listed in
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fstab. But at the moment there is no means to ask the user for credentials
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etc. You must configure your davfs2 mounts, using davfs2.conf and secrets,
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to allow mounting without user interaction for this to work.
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davfs2 needs a network connection to mount and also to unmount cleanly. So
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automatic mounting at boot time and unmounting at shut down may not work
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reliably. By default davfs2 mounts with option '_netdev' to inform the
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operating system about this and allow correct handling. Whether this really
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works depends on the details of the start-up and shut-down process and will
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be different on different systems. So please test before you rely on this.
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4 TLS / SSL
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===========
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The key question when using TLS/SSL is whether you can trust in the certificate
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the server presents. There is no gain in security when you use strong
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encryption for your communication with an attacker. There are also different
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opinions on whether you can really trust in certificates issued by the well
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known certificate 'authorities'.
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Nevertheless davfs2 insists on verification of server certificates. There
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are three ways to do this:
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- davfs2 will use the CA-certificates of your system to verify the server
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certificate.
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- You may store the server certificate in the certs directory and add a
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configuration option to davfs2.conf. You will have to verify this certificate
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by your own, as davfs2 will trust this certificate without further
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verification. This should be useful with self-made server certificates.
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If the server certificate is not self-signed, but signed by an unknown
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CA, the certificate file must contain the server certificate and the
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certificate of all the involved CA's.
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- The host-name of the server must match the subject-alt-name or the common
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name of the certificate.
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- If a certificate can not be verified, mount.davfs will print information
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about the certificate and ask the user. This will only be done, before
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mount.davfs changes into daemon mode.
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5 CACHE
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=======
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There are two reasons for caching:
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- The coda kernel file system expects a local copy of the file to act on.
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- Many applications, especially those with graphical user interfaces, think
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of file system calls as cheap and quick, which is not true when using a slow
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connection to the Internet. Some graphical interfaces for file handling even
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open every file in every directory they list, forcing davfs2 to download them
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from the server.
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To avoid excessive network traffic, davfs2 now saves all downloaded files in a
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cache directory and will hold the files, even when the file system is
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unmounted. When the same file system is mounted again, it will reuse this
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cached files.
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To avoid inconsistencies, davfs2 will do a conditional GET whenever a file is
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opened (it will ask the server if there is a newer version, and download only
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if there is).
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Many application use temporary files that will be deleted just after they have
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been closed. So whenever a file is newly created or changed, davfs2 will wait
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until it is closed and then wait another short period (configurable, default
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is 10 seconds) before it will upload the changed version to server. This saves
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a lot of unnecessary traffic, but the strategy still has to be enhanced. If
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there are many files to be uploaded (e.g. after copying a directory)
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mount.davfs may block quite some time, as it has to upload all the files.
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6 TROUBLESHOOTING
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=================
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In case davfs2 does not behave as you expect, there is some very useful free
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software, to search for the reason:
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- Use any browser, telnet and 'openssl s_client' to test whether you can
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connect to the server at all.
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- Cadaver is a WebDAV-client with an FTP-like interface. Besides the usual
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FTP-commands it allows you to display and manipulate WebDAV-properties, e.g.
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you can remove stale locks. (http://www.webdav.org/cadaver/)
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- You may set option 'debug most" in the davfs2.conf file. This will print a
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lot of debug messages in one of your log files.
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- Wireshark (former Ethereal) will log and analyse the traffic between davfs2
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and the server. (http://www.wireshark.org/)
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- If you have access to the server's log files, they contain valuable
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information.
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When sending a bug report, please include
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- the exact version of davfs2 and the source where you got it from.
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- a complete description of the bug and the actions that lead to the buggy
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behaviour (please note: I usually do not know the acronyms of your favourite
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applications, operating system and server. In many cases I never used them).
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The exact commands you issued on the command line and the messages you got
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from davfs2 are necessary to understand what's going on.
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Please always send the original error and debug messages in full. Don't
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replace them by your interpretation.
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- if possible, output from the above mentioned tools.
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7 KNOWN ISSUES
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==============
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- If the server does not support RFC 4331 (most servers don't), davfs2 cannot
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calculate the free disk space on the server. But some applications
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(e.g. nautilus) insist on this. So davfs can't help but lie. I tried to
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make the numbers look funny, so you will notice they are faked.
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8 CONTACT
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=========
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davfs2 is an Free Software project hostet at
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http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2 or
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http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2
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You can submit a bug-report or support-request at
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http://savannah.nongnu.org/support/?func=additem&group=davfs2 or
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http://savannah.nongnu.org/support/?func=additem&group=davfs2
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