4.11 Changing WebDAV Authentication Configuration Settings

4.11.1 Understanding WebDAV

WebDAV is a standard collaborative editing and file management protocol. Novell Filr relies on the WebDAV protocol for Edit-in-Place to use tools such as OpenOffice and Microsoft Office to edit documents on the Filr site.

IMPORTANT:When Filr users are running Windows 7 as the client operating system, various issues can be introduced because of WebDAV limitations in Windows 7. If your Filr users are using the Windows 7 operating system, see Configuring Filr to Support WebDAV on Windows 7 in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Administration Guide.

4.11.2 Changing the WebDAV Authentication Configuration Settings

  1. Follow the steps in Section 4.1, Changing Configuration Options for the Filr Appliance.

    You can modify the following configuration options:

    WebDAV authentication method: Select either Basic or Digest. The WebDAV authentication method determines how user credentials are passed from Filr to the WebDAV server. For more information, see Section 4.11.3, Choosing the WebDAV Authentication Method.

  2. Click Reconfigure Filr Server for your changes to take effect.

    NOTE:This stops and restarts your Filr server. Because this results in server downtime, you should restart the server at off-peak hours.

4.11.3 Choosing the WebDAV Authentication Method

The WebDAV authentication method determines how user credentials are passed from Filr to the WebDAV server. Filr supports two types of WebDAV authentication methods:

Choosing Basic Authentication

Basic authentication encodes the username and password with the Base64 algorithm. The Base64-encoded string is unsafe if transmitted over HTTP, and therefore should be combined with SSL/TLC (HTTPS).

Digest authentication is the default. Do not select Basic authentication unless there is a specific reason for doing so.

Choosing Digest Authentication

Digest authentication applies MD5 cryptographic, one-way hashing with nonce values to a password before sending it over the network. This option is safer than Basic authentication when used over HTTP.

Select this type of authentication when client users are using Windows 7 as their operating system and Microsoft Office as their text editor.