Construct WebDAV server on Ubuntu

Note: All commands below are executed under root user by default. If you are not root user and are required to have admin permission, add sudo in front of that command so it’s like sudo [some command].

1: Install Apache2:

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2

2: Configure Apache2:

Enable DAV and relative apache modules:

a2enmod dav_fs dav dav_lock

restart apache2 to get the above modules running:

systemctl restart apache2

3: Create user and virtual machine directory:

Create a new directory for virtual machine:

mkdir /var/www/sync

Create a new apache user (Remember the newly created account and password, which will be used later):

# This will prompt you to enter new password
htpasswd -c /var/www/me.dav [account name]

4: Create a WebDAV configuration:

Configure the virtual machine settings:

# you can also use whatever editor you like
vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/webdav.conf

Type :set paste, press i to enter INSERT mode, then paste the follow configurations, finally exit by press esc to exit INSERT mode, and type :x.

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
	DocumentRoot /var/www/sync/
	<Directory /var/www/sync/>
		Options Indexes MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Require all granted
	</Directory>
	Alias /webdav /var/www/sync
	<Location /webdav>
		DAV On
		AuthType Basic
		AuthName "webdav"
		AuthUserFile /var/www/me.dav
		Require valid-user
	</Location>
</VirtualHost>

Remove default site configuration and enable our webdav.conf, this removes the 000-default alias in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/ and create webdav alias in the same directory:

a2dissite 000-default
a2ensite webdav

Restart to get everything done:

systemctl restart apache2

5: Lastly, configure your client

Based on different client the specific operations may vary, but mainly there are only 3 fields to fill before we finish:

URL: [(your ip)123.123.123.123]/webdav
account: [the one you created]
password: [the one you entered]

For linux users, you can use Cadaver to access WebDAV.
Note that we must put /webdav after the ip address, or otherwise the client will connect to the root directory by default.