[jcifs] webdav / cifs server recommendations

[Robert Stuart]

Thanks Andre and Giampaolo,

I've found the windows webdav compatability site a while ago and yes, it 
scared me - especially as I have little control over what our clients 
use elsewhere. I'll revisit the client issue side of things again - we 
can try  educating users about the requirements for connecting. I'm 
becoming convinced that non-vfs access isn't going to work (ie map a 
drive letter) in windows.

The majority of our users use cifs for fileserver access (samba servers 
actually). The webdav is the remote access mechanism (as an alternative 
to VPN+cifs etc). I'll have a look at jackrabbit and see what it is like.

Assuming I can get the windows clients behaving, is there a drop in 
replacement for davenport? It doesn't look like it has been updated in a 
while, and won't seem to work with the 1.3.x series of jcifs jars.

Regards
Robert


André Warnier wrote:
> Giampaolo Tomassoni wrote:
> ...
>> If you are looking for a Java implementation of a webdav server, have 
>> a look
>> at Apache Jackrabbit (http://jackrabbit.apache.org/).
>
> The standard Tomcat distribution (up to 5.5.x) used to contain a DAV 
> example application.
> Don't know about 6.x and 7.x, but it should still be available somewhere.
>
>  Note, however, that MS
>> clients don't match nicely with webdav, as they often try instead to
>> establish an SMB connection. This happens even when you clearly specify
>> 'http://' in the URL to the shared folder...
>>
> But, in my experience, not if you also specify the port :
> http://some.server.com:80/somedavfolder
>
>
>
> But there are plenty of other reasons why some MS clients do not work 
> properly with DAV servers. To be more clear, it is kind of a mess, 
> depending on OS versions, revisions, patches, DLL's installed, 
> applications installed and whatnot.
> Search Google for "Windows +dav" for an overview of the matter.
> Most of these issues are solvable, but finding a workable solution for 
> a range of uncontrolled workstations can be a challenge.


-- 
Robert Stuart
IT Systems Administrator
Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, QUT. CRICOS No. 00213J
Phone: +61 7 3138 6017 Mob: 0410 088 042  QUT speed dial: #6 7099