3.5 Planning the WebDAV Authentication Method

3.5.1 Understanding WebDAV

WebDAV is a standard collaborative editing and file management protocol. Novell Vibe relies on the WebDAV protocol for two key features:

IMPORTANT:When Vibe users are running Windows 7 as the client operating system, various issues can be introduced because of WebDAV limitations in Windows 7. If your Vibe users are using the Windows 7 operating system, see Configuring Vibe to Support WebDAV on Windows 7 in the Novell Vibe 3.2 Administration Guide.

3.5.2 Choosing the WebDAV Authentication Method

The WebDAV authentication method determines how user credentials are passed from Vibe to the WebDAV server. Vibe 3 and later supports three 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).

Select this type of authentication when you plan to use Novell Access Manager or Internet Information Services (IIS) to authenticate users.

For more information about encryption algorithms, see Section 3.6.5, Database Encryption Algorithm.

Choosing Digest Authentication

Digest authentication applies MD5 cryptographic, one-way hashing with usage of nonce values to a password before sending it over the network. This option is more safe 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.

For more information about encryption algorithms, see Section 3.6.5, Database Encryption Algorithm.

Choosing Windows Authentication

Windows Authentication provides Windows users with a single sign-on experience, enabling users to automatically authenticate to Vibe after they are logged in to their individual workstations. Internet Information Services (IIS) provides this capability.

To configure Vibe to use Windows Authentication as the WebDAV authentication method, select basic in the WebDAV authentication method field during the Vibe installation program, then configure Windows Authentication as described in Section 9.9, Configuring Single Sign-On with Internet Information Services for Windows.

BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under WebDAV authentication method, specify the authentication method you want Vibe to use when authenticating to WebDAV.