WebDAV driver for the File Abstraction Layer

Extension Key: fal_webdav

Language: en

Version: 0.1.0

Keywords: forAdmins, forIntermediates

Copyright 2013, Andreas Wolf, <andreas.wolf@typo3.org>

This document is published under the Open Content License

available from http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml

The content of this document is related to TYPO3

- a GNU/GPL CMS/Framework available from www.typo3.org

Table of Contents

WebDAV driver for the File Abstraction Layer	1

Introduction	3

What does it do?	3

Screenshots	3

Users manual	4

Installation	4

Setup	4

Common problems	4

Known problems	6

ToDo list	7

ChangeLog	8

Introduction

What does it do?

The TYPO3 File Abstraction Layer (FAL) makes it possible to use different file storages for TYPO3 websites, in addition to the well-known fileadmin directory. This is done through so-called drivers that handle communication with the physical file storage, enabling TYPO3 to operate on a variety of different file storages.

This extension provides an implementation of the driver interface for WebDAV, the “HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning” as defined in RFC 4918 (see http://www.webdav.org/specs/rfc4918.html for the detailed specification).

Note: This extension only works with TYPO3 6.0 and newer.

Users manual

This section is targeted at administrators who want to install and configure the FAL WebDAV driver on their TYPO3 installation.

Installation

Installing the extension is pretty straightforward: Just fetch it from the TYPO3 extension repository (or, for the brave, git clone it from git.typo3.org) and install it via the extension manager.

There are no external dependencies, all necessary libraries are delivered with the extension.

Setup

To configure a new storage on a WebDAV server, just create a new File Storage record on the root page of your TYPO3 installation.

The basic configuration is very simple: Choose “WebDAV” as the Driver (“Configuration” tab) and save the record to let TYPO3 load the correct configuration record.

Now set the “WebDAV URL” field to the URL your WebDAV resides at. If the server requires a login to access the storage, provide the username and password in the accordant fields.

Keep in mind that this storage has to be public if you want to use files directly on your website. There is currently no mechanism to automatically publish a file to a public webspace.

Common problems

Certificate errors when using an SSL connection

In some cases, there will be errors with SSL-secured connections, because the authenticity of the certificate can not be verified. This happens e.g. when using self-signed certificates or an unknown certification authority (CA). The reason is that cURL checks the issuer of a certificate (that is used to ensure the identity of the other side) against a list of known certification authorities.

A possibility to circumvent this is to add your certification authority's certificate to the list of known CAs. Refer to the documentation of cURL and PHP on how to do this.

If you cannot add the certificate for whatever reason, you can also disable the certificate verification. Bear in mind however that this breaks the (weak) protection SSL provides against man-in-the-middle attacks. So only do this if you understand the consequences (and ideally don't do it if the connection between your webserver running TYPO3 and the WebDAV server is via an untrusted network).

Storage gets unavailable from time to time

When a network error occurs (e.g. a timeout because the server is down or the connection slow), the storage is temporarily disabled so you won't experience long waiting times until hitting the timeout again and again. The time the storage is taken offline depends on the TYPO3 core; for version 6.0 five minutes is used. This might change in the future nonetheless.

fal_webdav already uses the new logging API introduced with TYPO3 6.0. By default, log data is written to typo3temp/logs/typo3.log.

Keep an eye on your log file in case your WebDAV storage is unresponsive or behaves strangely – most likely, errors will be logged there.

Known problems

The error handling and reporting of the extension still needs some polishing, e.g. when hitting a timeout, there should be some message to the user. Most likely this is an issue that should be tackled within the TYPO3 core.

The proxy settings of TYPO3 are currently not respected by the extension.

In case you find any errors, please report them at http://forge.typo3.org/projects/extension-fal_webdav/issues. Thanks!

ToDo list

Create a ToDo list

ChangeLog

Refer to the Git history (e.g. available at https://git.typo3.org/TYPO3v4/Extensions/fal_webdav.git) for more detailed information on what changed between the releases.

Version:	Changes:
0.1.0	First public release

WebDAV driver for the File Abstraction Layer - fal_webdav	ChangeLog

8

WebDAV driver for the File Abstraction Layer

fal_webdav

forAdmins forIntermediates

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Andreas Wolf

2012-01-14T15:17:04