[Deploying Sakai] Webdav

[Seth Theriault]

Sloane, James wrote:

> Just wondering about how other people run WebDAV, if they're 
> happy with basic authentication or use SSL for encryption? We 
> run Sakai 2.4 behind apache and are working out the options or 
> if its possible to run SSL for webdav separate from sakai.

The authentication method and SSL encruyption are, as you might 
already know, 2 different things.

Sakai's DAV module uses HTTP Basic-Auth for authentication 
transport mechanism between the DAV client and the Sakai server. 
It's backed by internal authentication against the Sakai database 
or whatever method you have a UserDirectorProvider for (LDAP, 
Kerberos, etc.). Any container-based login schema you are using 
for the Web interface probably isn't going to work with DAV, 
hence the UDP requirement. For example, here at Columbia, we use 
the Kerberos UDP for DAV logins and a CAS-like WebISO for the 
rest.

You want to have SSL encryption so that a user's login and 
password are NOT transmitted in the clear. Many institutions, 
including Columbia, are using Apache to handle SSL (and other) 
duties for Sakai.

Seth