Is there a plan to add webdav to moodle distribution? is there a team some where working on webDav?
If yes do they work from the Jean-Luc Thirot's webDav third party
thanks in advance,
Hélène Bouley
I second that. Webdav access is for me one important feature of WebCT that I am missing in Moodle.
Joseph
Joseph
What would Webdav do in the context of Moodle? How does it work in WebCT?
+1 WebDAV would be a great addition.
What does it do? A WebDAV folder mounts on the desktop like a normal network folder and allows faculty to batch upload via drag-and-drop to their sites from their desktops. Yes, we know Moodle can do this if you first zip a selection, upload it, and unzip it. For some people, the zipping process will be adequate; for other less technical users, the zipping process is cimbersome and can cause confusion.
When it works, WebDAV is simpler and matches a set of functionality users are accustomed to. But one has to integrate with various operating systems (and differences in versions of those operating systems!) and deal with security issues. Integrating WebDAV is not a trivial task.
What does it do? A WebDAV folder mounts on the desktop like a normal network folder and allows faculty to batch upload via drag-and-drop to their sites from their desktops. Yes, we know Moodle can do this if you first zip a selection, upload it, and unzip it. For some people, the zipping process will be adequate; for other less technical users, the zipping process is cimbersome and can cause confusion.
When it works, WebDAV is simpler and matches a set of functionality users are accustomed to. But one has to integrate with various operating systems (and differences in versions of those operating systems!) and deal with security issues. Integrating WebDAV is not a trivial task.
WebDAV is a webserver feature, not a moodle feature - isn't it? There are many ways to implement this safely...
regards,
Maik
regards,
Maik
Hi,
Yes and no. Yes, WebDAV is a webserver extension, but ideally you'd have Moodle integration. That is, an instructor could mount a WebDAV folder on their desktop, create directories and/or move files, then log in to Moodle and see the files in Moodle's Files and Resources.
The safety issue comes into play in numerous ways in complex environments. For example, since WebDAV uses the webserver's authentication, it may or may not easily integrate to one of Moodle's authentications methods (say, using a flat file or external database). Yes, there are ways around these things (such as giving users two passwords: one for Moodle, one for WebDAV), but it's not easy.
Again, it may not be a feature for every user, but for those of us coming from environments that have used WebDAV, it would be a great feature to integrate with Moodle.
Best regards,
Jim
Yes and no. Yes, WebDAV is a webserver extension, but ideally you'd have Moodle integration. That is, an instructor could mount a WebDAV folder on their desktop, create directories and/or move files, then log in to Moodle and see the files in Moodle's Files and Resources.
The safety issue comes into play in numerous ways in complex environments. For example, since WebDAV uses the webserver's authentication, it may or may not easily integrate to one of Moodle's authentications methods (say, using a flat file or external database). Yes, there are ways around these things (such as giving users two passwords: one for Moodle, one for WebDAV), but it's not easy.
Again, it may not be a feature for every user, but for those of us coming from environments that have used WebDAV, it would be a great feature to integrate with Moodle.
Best regards,
Jim
> The safety issue comes into play in numerous ways in complex environments.
> For example, since WebDAV uses the webserver's authentication, it may or
> may not easily integrate to one of Moodle's authentications methods (say, using
> a flat file or external database). Yes, there are ways around these things (such
> as giving users two passwords: one for Moodle, one for WebDAV), but it's not
> easy.
WebDAV support is built in to Apache webserver. Apache can authenticate against an LDAP server, so can Moodle - just have them both authenticate against the same LDAP server and you're away. As you point out, though, Moodle might be set up to use a different authentication method - an LDAP server might not be available for some reason. One way, then, to ensure that Moodle and the WebDAV server are authenticating against the same source would be to write an authentication module for Moodle that authenticates against a WebDAV server.
--
David Hicks
> For example, since WebDAV uses the webserver's authentication, it may or
> may not easily integrate to one of Moodle's authentications methods (say, using
> a flat file or external database). Yes, there are ways around these things (such
> as giving users two passwords: one for Moodle, one for WebDAV), but it's not
> easy.
WebDAV support is built in to Apache webserver. Apache can authenticate against an LDAP server, so can Moodle - just have them both authenticate against the same LDAP server and you're away. As you point out, though, Moodle might be set up to use a different authentication method - an LDAP server might not be available for some reason. One way, then, to ensure that Moodle and the WebDAV server are authenticating against the same source would be to write an authentication module for Moodle that authenticates against a WebDAV server.
--
David Hicks
Apache can authenticate against MySQL with mod_auth_mysql. ProFTP can authenticate against MySQL (FTP can be treated like webdav folders - even by poor featured windows explorer). Both may use the moodle database to authenticate. Why open another big can like LDAP for this task?
Just a thought:
You may open one course folder worldwide for e.g. webDAV (or sftp), let's call him "webdav". Only trainers can access this folder by MySQL-authentification.
mod_auth_mysql (for apache) let you add a "WHERE"-clause for the query and supports MD5 encrypted passwords, too. So you can look, if the person logging in has trainer permission for this course id. Do you really need something more? In combination with the <directory>-parameter of apache and a little shell scripting (modifying httpd.conf) all you want should be possible.
A solution by moodle itself could only be convenient, neither save or performant - in my opinion. PHP ist nice for webapplications, but a little slow for server administration tasks.
regards,
Maik
Just a thought:
You may open one course folder worldwide for e.g. webDAV (or sftp), let's call him "webdav". Only trainers can access this folder by MySQL-authentification.
mod_auth_mysql (for apache) let you add a "WHERE"-clause for the query and supports MD5 encrypted passwords, too. So you can look, if the person logging in has trainer permission for this course id. Do you really need something more? In combination with the <directory>-parameter of apache and a little shell scripting (modifying httpd.conf) all you want should be possible.
A solution by moodle itself could only be convenient, neither save or performant - in my opinion. PHP ist nice for webapplications, but a little slow for server administration tasks.
regards,
Maik
For those who would like to test it, we developed a WebDAV extension to Moodle about one year ago, based on the HTTP_WebDAV_Server class. It works, but for various reasons, we finally decided not to use it. It was posted on moodle.org in this thread, but we didn't receive a lot of feedback. So please test it! (at that time, it was for Moodle 1.5-1.6, but I should work with newer versions with minimal changes).
I'm going to test this webdav extension after the moodlemoot and my vacations.
Sure it's not a trivial task . From yours answers I can guess there is no real work to integrate it with Moodle i think it will be great to do it.
It's a server feature that must deal with information from the application to give right permissions on the directories.
From my point using Webdav is a way to improve the teacher productivity - They miss this WebCT feature.
In this kind of stuff, a good start is may be a list of all potential securities holes to deal with.
It's a server feature that must deal with information from the application to give right permissions on the directories.
From my point using Webdav is a way to improve the teacher productivity - They miss this WebCT feature.
In this kind of stuff, a good start is may be a list of all potential securities holes to deal with.