9-4 Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrators Guide for Oracle HTTP Server
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HEAD: Gets the header content of a file without retrieving the file.
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LOCK: Locks a file when the file is checked out. This method is not supported by Oracle Web Cache.
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UNLOCK: Unlocks a file after check in. This method is not supported by Oracle Web Cache.
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PROPFIND: Gets properties defined for a file.
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PROPPATCH: Sets the properties for a file. The OraDAV API supports shared and exclusive locking, retrieving basic DAV
properties, and defining and retrieving server-defined properties or client-defined properties. Set-based operations such as COPY, MOVE, DELETE can be done
completely by a single call to an OraDAV driver.
9.1.4 OraDAV Usage Model
OraDAV usage can involve any combination of the following activities:
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Browsing: Read-only activity which uses WebDAV to access content on the file server. Its usage model is typical of a read-only Web site.
The DAVOraReadOnly directive specifies whether or not WebDAV should be used in a read-only mode by WebDAV clients. A value of Off specifies that WebDAV
clients function normally. A value of On prevents WebDAV clients from performing write operations while using WebDAV. It does allow read-only activity
by Web browsers and WebDAV clients. The default is Off.
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Restructuring: Deleting, moving, and copying content. Restructuring is usually done infrequently by a restricted set of individuals who have write access to the
WebDAV content.
Restructuring has the same limitations and complications that one encounters when restructuring a file directory. In some cases, this directory hierarchy is
owned and managed by one user. If the directory is shared, then the client doing restructuring is given sole access to the hierarchy through WebDAV exclusive
locks.
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Editing: Modifying one or a small subset of resources in a hierarchy. Properly designed WebDAV clients use shared or exclusive locks on such resources to
coordinate these activities.
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Property Management: Associating properties and attributes for example, author with documents for ease of lookup and for categorization. WebDAV clients assign
properties to documents using the PROPPATCH directive and retrieve properties using the PROPFIND directive.
9.1.5 PROPFIND Security
The PROPFIND method can be used to list all the files in the DAV-enabled directory. For security reasons, it is probably best to protect the list of files from general read
access.
An alternative is to limit the PROPFIND to a group of people, a set of domains, or a set of hosts, while the methods that modify content are limited to just a few authors. This
scenario allows, for example, your companys employees to browse the files on the server, yet only a few people can change them. Anonymous non-authenticated
visitors cannot browse or modify.
Configuring mod_oradav 9-5
Finally, you can simply omit PROPFIND from the limits if your Web server is intended as a general, read-only repository of files. This allows anybody to arbitrarily browse
the directories and to fetch the files.
9.2 Configuring mod_oradav
Use the Advanced Server Configuration page of Fusion Middleware Control to configure the mod_oradav module.
This section includes the following subsections:
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Section 9.2.1, OraDAV Configuration Parameters
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Section 9.2.2, Using Fusion Middleware Control to Configure mod_oradav
9.2.1 OraDAV Configuration Parameters
When Oracle Fusion Middleware is installed, all required OraDAV parameters are set to their default values. If the default values do not meet your needs, you can modify
the values for required parameters and specify values for optional parameters. The OraDAV parameters in the mod_oradav.conf file start with DAV and
DAVParam.
The DAV parameter indicates that a URL location is DAV-enabled. The DAV keyword is followed by one of the following values:
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On – indicates that mod_oradav is to use the local file system for content.
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Oracle – indicates that mod_oradav is to use OraDAV for all content. The DAVParam parameters are used to specify name-value pairs. The required pairs
are those that enable Oracle HTTP Server to connect to an Oracle database. These include the names OraService, OraUser, and OraPassword or OraAltPassword.
Each OraDAV driver can use the DAVParam mechanism to create its own driver-specific settings. All DAVParam name-value pairs are passed to the OraDAV
driver. In addition to the OraDAV parameters, you should consider whether to specify additional DAV parameters, such as DavMinTimeout.
Example 9–1 shows the syntax to configure access to files on the local system. It
specifies that the directory dav_portal under the Web server documents directory is to be DAV-enabled, along with all directories under dav_portal in the hierarchy. There
must not be any symlinks defined on the dav_portal directory or any of its subdirectories.
Example 9–1 Configuring File System Access
Location dav_portal DAV On
Location
The following recommendations should be considered when mapping containers under the root location:
Note: To configure the parameters use Fusion Middleware Control.
Do not edit the mod_oradav.conf file directly. Doing so may harm your installation.
