Here is a tiny article about how I used Lighttpd to serve content over WebDAV  .

First, install the required packages: 

$ aptitude install lighttpd-mod-webdav

As we want to provide a secure WebDAV access, we need to install OpenSSL  : 

$ aptitude install openssl

Then we create the file /etc/lighttpd/clear-creds.lst , that will contain credentials required for authentication, under the following form: 

user1:password1
user2:password2
user3:password3

Logins and passwords are stored here in clear. This is stupid, but for this project I was looking to setup a quick and dirty server. For temporary tests this setup is OK, but I encourage you to switch to a better credential storage system.

Now I want to serve WebDAV content within a secure channel. A self-signed SSL certificate will be enough. Let’s generate one: 

$ cd /etc/lighttpd/
$ openssl req -x509 -nodes -subj '/' -days 3650 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout server.pem -out server.pem

We’ll configure Lighttpd by loading the default parameters of modules we use: 

$ cd /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/
$ ln -s ../conf-available/05-auth.log
$ ln -s ../conf-available/10-ssl.conf
$ ln -s ../conf-available/10-webdav.conf

Now I create a custom configuration file: 

$ touch /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/99-custom.conf
$ cd /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/
$ ln -s ../conf-available/99-custom.conf

Here is the content of that 99-custom.conf configuration file: 

# Hide server version
server.tag = "lighttpd"

# Force all request to be in HTTPs
# This also redirects all WebDAV requests to WebDAVs
$HTTP["scheme"] == "http" {
  $HTTP["host"] =~ "(.*)" {
    url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://%1/$1" )
  }
}

# Valid credentials are required for any request
auth.backend = "plain"
auth.backend.plain.userfile = "/etc/lighttpd/clear-creds.lst"
auth.require = (
  "/" => (
    "method" => "digest",
    "realm" => "My WebDAV server",
    "require" => "valid-user"
  )
)

# Enable WebDAV in read and write mode
webdav.activate = "enable"
webdav.is-readonly = "disable"

# Customize directory listings a bit
dir-listing.set-footer = "<a href='https://example.com'>Company</a>'s document repository."

And do not forget to restart the server: 

$ /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can now:

  • Browse the file system in read/write mode with a WebDAV client via a webdavs://12.34.56.78/ URL;

  • Access content in read-only mode with a browser by a classic https://12.34.56.78/ URL.