Set Up WebDAV With MySQL Authentication On Apache2

The guide explains how to set up WebDAV MySQL Authentication (using mod_auth_mysql) Apache2 on a server Debian Etch. WebDAV means Web-based Distributed Authoring and versioning and is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to edit files directly on the Apache server so they do not need to be downloaded or sent via FTP. Of course, WebDAV may also be used to send and download files.

1 Preliminary Note

I'm using a Debian Etch server with the hostname server1.example.com and the IP address 192.168.0.100 here.

2 Installing Apache2, WebDAV, MySQL, mod_auth_mysql

Unfortunately libapache2-mod-auth-mysql is available as a Debian package only for Debian Lenny (testing) and Sid (unstable), but not for Etch. Therefore we will install the libapache2-mod-auth-mysql package from Lenny. To do this, open /etc/apt/sources.list and add the line deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ lenny main; your /etc/apt/sources.list could then look like this:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ etch main
deb-src http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ etch main

deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ lenny main

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib

Of course (in order not to mess up our system), we want to install packages from Lenny only if there's no appropriate package from Etch - if there are packages from Etch and Lenny, we want to install the one from Etch. To do this, we give packages from Etch a higher priority in /etc/apt/preferences:

vi /etc/apt/preferences

Package: *
Pin: release a=etch
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=lenny
Pin-Priority: 650

(The terms etch and lenny refer to the appropriate terms in /etc/apt/sources.list; if you're using stable and testing there, you must use stable and testing instead of etch and lenny in /etc/apt/preferences as well.)

Afterwards, we update our packages database:

apt-get update

If you're getting an error like this:

Segmentation faultsts... 96%

or this one:

E: Dynamic MMap ran out of room

open /etc/apt/apt.conf and add a line for APT::Cache-Limit with a very high value, e.g. like this:

vi /etc/apt/apt.conf

APT::Cache-Limit "100000000";

Then run

apt-get update

again and upgrade the installed packages:

apt-get upgrade

(If you see any questions, you can accept the default values.)

To install Apache2, WebDAV, MySQL, and mod_auth_mysql, we run:

apt-get install apache2 mysql-server mysql-client libapache2-mod-auth-mysql

Create a password for the MySQL user root (replace yourrootsqlpassword with the password you want to use):

mysqladmin -u root password yourrootsqlpassword

Then check with

netstat -tap | grep mysql

on which addresses MySQL is listening. If the output looks like this:

tcp 0 0 localhost.localdo:mysql *:* LISTEN 2713/mysqld

which means MySQL is listening on localhost.localdomain only, then you're safe with the password you set before. But if the output looks like this:

tcp 0 0 *:mysql *:* LISTEN 2713/mysqld

you should set a MySQL password for your hostname, too, because otherwise anybody can access your database and modify data:

mysqladmin -h server1.example.com -u root password yourrootsqlpassword

Afterwards, enable the WebDAV and mod_auth_mysql modules:

a2enmod dav_fs

a2enmod dav

a2enmod auth_mysql

Reload Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

3 Creating A Virtual Host

I will now create a default Apache vhost in the directory /var/www/web1/web. For this purpose, I will modify the default Apache vhost configuration in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default. If you already have a vhost for which you'd like to enable WebDAV, you must adjust this tutorial to your situation.

First, we create the directory /var/www/web1/web and make the Apache user (www-data) the owner of that directory:

mkdir -p /var/www/web1/web

chown www-data /var/www/web1/web

Then we back up the default Apache vhost configuration (/etc/apache2/sites-available/default) and create our own one:

mv /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/default_orig

vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
  ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

  DocumentRoot /var/www/web1/web/
  <Directory /var/www/web1/web/>
          Options Indexes MultiViews
          AllowOverride None
          Order allow,deny
          allow from all
  </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

Then reload Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

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