[Using Sakai] WebDAV & Sakai

[Marshall Feldman]

We have Sakai 9.x, and I'm generally running Mac OS X on 4(!) computers
in the process of being upgraded to Yosemite.

I've been using Cyberduck for years, but I don't think it meets my needs
in this instance. I need to store files on Sakai in Resources, organize
them into folders, and be able to access them seamlessly from apps. For
example, at home I have a NAS drive and  mount it on my iMac as if it
were part of the local file system. (I believe this uses Bonjour.) Once
the NAS drive is mounted, apps on the iMac can access files on it as if
they were local. Of course this requires everything to be on the same
LAN. WebDAV doesn't have this restriction.

Unless I'm missing something about Cyberduck's functionality, it's
basically an Explorer/Finder-like tool for transferring files. I need to
use WebDAV to access files in real time, not to up- and download them.


On 2/12/15 4:13 PM, Neal Caidin wrote:
> What version of Sakai are you using?
> What operating system are you using WebDav on (Mac OS X, Windows 7,
> Windows 8, etc.)?
>
> I know a lot of work has gone into making WebDav work with Sakai, but
> it hasn't been easy. A lot of times the backup plan has been to use a
> 3rd party tool for the WebDav connection, like Cyberduck (seems to be
> the most popular). I assume that the problem is more on the WebDav
> technology than Sakai technology but not being a "guru" , I can not
> say definitively.
>
> Starting with Sakai 10, we added drag and drop for Resources and that
> has proved to be a popular alternative to WebDav and easier to use. In
> Chrome, one can drag whole folders over. Other browsers individual files. 
>
> -- Neal
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Marshall Feldman <marsh at uri.edu
> <mailto:marsh at uri.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     Last week I tried using WebDAV with our local Sakai implementation and
>     couldn't get it to work properly. So I asked our local Sakai
>     support for
>     help using WebDAV on Sakai, but the answer I got back was really about
>     ways to use Sakai without using WebDAV (e.g., zip files to move
>     multiple
>     files at once). So I wrote back and gave a description of what I
>     want to
>     do and why only WebDAV or something very much like it (e.g., NFS)
>     would
>     work. But in retrospect it seems to me this was also off topic. My
>     question simply is how does one make WebDAV work with Sakai, and if it
>     doesn't work with Sakai then why does Sakai advertise its use (in
>     Resources)? I never really got an answer.
>
>     The support person did briefly mention some technical issues which
>     seem
>     to make WebDAV and Sakai incompatible. Here's what I understand. Our
>     implementation of Sakai runs in a cluster. When WebDAV first
>     connects to
>     Sakai it connects to a specific instance of the Sakai file system
>     in the
>     cluster. But during any given session Sakai may want to use a
>     different
>     instance in the cluster. Since WebDAV is still connected to the
>     original
>     instance, it breaks.
>
>     It seems to me that if this interpretation is roughly correct,
>     then one
>     of these two implications is too. (1) Sakai is incompatible with
>     WebDAV,
>     in which case the instructions in Resources about using WebDAV with
>     Sakai should be removed. Otherwise, they just waste everyone's
>     time. (2)
>     Somebody actually went into Sakai's file management routines and
>     modified them so that WebDAV behaves properly. Perhaps this is an
>     add-on
>     or particular settings for various parameters set when configuring
>     Sakai. But for some reason this feature has not been properly
>     implemented here at my institution.
>
>     Could one of you gurus enlighten me about this?
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