Ubuntu: Mounting remote filesystem using davfs2 (FUSE)

Sunday, 9th Sep 2007 at 19:26 (administration, ubuntu)
Tags: davfs2, fuse, webdav

If you have access to some webdav server you might want to give your system access to those files as if they were local ones so you don’t have to use some interactive application every time you need access. FUSE is very useful for that very task, also because it for user space (you don’t have to be root to mount it). After this set up it’s meant to work for any application that works on that webdav directory files just the same as they would on the local (read: hard drive) file system. What needs to be done:

1. Install davfs2 package (you might use Synaptic instead):

   $ apt-cache search davfs2
   davfs2 - mount a WebDAV resource as a regular file system
   $sudo aptitude install davfs2

2. reconfigure the package since it needs to run suid if normal users should be able to use it:

   sudo dpkg-reconfigure davfs2

   

3. After confirming to SUID davfs2 select a user group, e.g. “davfs2”:
   
   
4. make a mount point, i.e. a directory where the “file system” is hung into (directory webdove in a subdir of your home):

   mkdir ~/mnt/webdove

5. to testmount use something like (use quotes to tell bash to keep it’s hands off it):

   sudo mount.davfs 'http://domain.tld/path' /path/to/webdove

   You will be prompted for user and password

6. To allow regular users access I could only find a way where one needs to touch /etc/fstab to add a line like this one:

   http://domain.tld/davath /path/to/webdove   davfs   user,rw,noauto   0   0

   Now any user can do mount mount /path/to/webdove and umount /path/to/webdove

From the man page:

If a proxy must be used this should be configured in /home/filomena/.davfs2/davfs2.conf
proxy proxy.mycompany.com:8080

Credentials are stored in /home/filomena/.davfs2/secrets
proxy.mycompany.com filomena “my secret”
http://webdav.org/dav webdav-username password

Note: If your webdav server supports https, i.e. encrypted transfer you might use that as well. Just replace http with https above.

Even though this works and does enable the user to mount a webdave server by himself it doesn’t integrate very well into Ubuntu (as I understand it). For example the user can’t choose where to mount it. Also, there is a lot that needs to be set up correctly by the admin. I really would like to hear comments to point me to other, easier solutions (see below). A good example for user friendliness would be sshfs.

Update 2008/05/08: A nice and working description about mounting the (Germany-based) GMX-Mediacenter via secure webdav2 I have listed below. Hopefully some day I will find the time to summerize it here as it is written in German.

Resources:

• from LinuxQuestions.org
• man mount.davfs(8)
• project’s homepage
• Gentoo-Wiki to mount GMX-Mediacenter (German)