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Re: Can't get WebDAV to work properly

ToolBar
Aspirant

Can't get WebDAV to work properly

On a ReadyNAS Pro 2 with RAIDiator 4.2.28 I followed the instruction here (p. 41) to activate WebDAV. I registered a ddns domain name on NO-IP.Com. I then set my router to use this ddns domain name. I also set it to give a static IP address to the ReadyNAS and to forward ports 80 and 443 to the ReadyNAS.

 

Using Firefox 44.0 I'm able to access the ReadyNAS by entering "https://<domain name>/ in the URL field and then my username and password in the dialog box that pops up, where <domain name> is the full, 3-part name from NO-IP.Com. I'm also able to access it using http.

 

First Question. When I use Firefox, the first screen I see shows all of my shares with HTTP/S access. Is there any way to access only shares with WebDAV activated from Firefox's URL field?

 

Second Question. I'm confused about what URL to use for WebDAV access. Suppose, for example, I allow 3 shares to have WebDAV access. Is the correct URL https://<domain name>/<share name> for each different share? If so, if only one share has WebDAV access, must the share name be included in the URL?

 

Third Question (THIS IS REALLY WHERE I'M HAVING TROUBLE). I've tried accessing the share via WebDAV all sorts of ways: with and without the share name, with and without capitalization in the username, using the domain name, using the assigned WAN IP address instead, etc., etc., etc. No matter what I do, I seem to be unable to access the share via WebDAV.

 

When I try to access it via Finder on my iMac (running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5) via Finder > Go > Connect to Server and enter "http://<domain name>/" or "http://<domain name>/<share name>, I initially get the login dialog. I choose "Registered User" and enter my user password on the ReadyNAS, but up until a few minutes ago, I always got an error message, "There was a problem connecting to the server "<domain name>" ....

 

Of course, once I started writing this post, the freaking thing started working! (I've spent the last 2 days on this!!!)

 

But, I'm also using Zotero, which is a reference management system. It has a way to store pdf files on a WebDAV server. It has a dialog with a URL broken into two, possibly 3 parts: protocol (http or https), path (<domain name>/<share name>, and folder (/zotero/). The folder seems to be mandator and automatically added to the path. Two other fields are the Username and Password. It also has a button, "Verify Server", and that's where I'm still having trouble.

 

If I use http, it tells me "You don't have permission to access /<share name>/zotero/ on the WebDAV server. If I use https, it tells me, "SSL certificate error connecting to <domain name>. See the certificate override documentation for more information." I did see the overide documentation, and did follow the instructions by copying a certificate file from the Firefox profile to Zotero's user setting folder. But that didn't make a difference. Besides, if I can't get http working because of the path, I doubt fixing the certificate will make a difference for https.

 

Any suggestions for fixing this?

Message 1 of 4

Accepted Solutions
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Can't get WebDAV to work properly

Hello ToolBar,

 

You can only set HTTP/S to get redirected to a specific share, I see no option for selecting only the ones with WebDav enabled.

 

See this article's second part "Set Up Your Router for Remote Access" where it shows how to access the shares via WebDav. Ignore the first part that shows steps how to enable it on ReadyNAS OS6, you are using ReadyNAS OS4.

 

Regards,

View solution in original post

Message 2 of 4

All Replies
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Can't get WebDAV to work properly

Hello ToolBar,

 

You can only set HTTP/S to get redirected to a specific share, I see no option for selecting only the ones with WebDav enabled.

 

See this article's second part "Set Up Your Router for Remote Access" where it shows how to access the shares via WebDav. Ignore the first part that shows steps how to enable it on ReadyNAS OS6, you are using ReadyNAS OS4.

 

Regards,

Message 2 of 4
ToolBar
Aspirant

Re: Can't get WebDAV to work properly

Well, first a few things I've figured out. I'm not exactly certain they're completely necessary, but the *@&!^$# thing started working after I did this.

  1. The username is capitalized exactly as it shows up in Frontview. E.g., "JohnDoe" rather than "johndoe" or "JOHNDOE." I think all the Unix systems and all Internet protocols I've worked with (over the past 40+ years) either have been case-insensitive for user names or have had a two-username system, with one being form ("John Doe") and one being all lowercase and actually used for naming the user's root directory ("johndoe"). So if I'm right about this, it's somewhat unusual.
  2. I rebooted the ReadyNAS before it started working. So maybe rebooting it was necessary.
  3. Initially I had particularly high security for the WebDAV share: very strong passwords, explicit permissions for different categories of users, only specific users having write permissions, etc. I've relaxed them temporarily until the system has all the functionality I need. This mainly means working from different locations, with different devices, and using a specific set of apps with the share. Once I'm satisfied the share is working how I want it to, I will restore the security settings one-by-one and check that each restoration doesn't break connectivity.

Otherwise, JennC's post, along with what I've said above, solves the problem.

 

Here are some miscellaneous comments to suggest ways to make this easier for others who might run into similar problems:

  1. Either Netgear never had documentation for setting up WebDAV for OS4, or it was deleted when OS6 came out. Provide and continue to provide appropriate documentation for all versions of the OS. "OS6" suggests that there have been 6 versions of the OS, but I doubt that all of them have handled WebDAV differently. So there probably would only need to be 2-4 versions of the documentation for WebDAV.
  2. Ditto, for target operating systems. The one in Jenn's link is only for Windows. Maybe Netgear assumes people running Linux, OS X, IOS, Android, or Chrome don't need such hand-holding. A Linux explanation would convey the most fundamental information since the ReadyNAS and WebDAV architectures are Unix-based. A generic version without specific reference to a particular OS would also helpfully convey the sequence of steps and things like naming conventions, path components, etc. Here's an example of headings for a generic summary:
    1. Authorize a HTTP/S share to use WebDAV and set permissions for the share
    2. Set router for remote access (set external domain name or IP address and set port 80 and/or 443 forwarding )
    3. Set up client system to access the share via WebDAV
    4. (Optional) Set up client system to mount the share automatically upon login (or startup)
    5. (Optional) On each client system, set the path to the share, with appropriate subdirectories if necessary, in each application that will routinely use the share by default.
  3. The documentation should be more clear about case-sensitivity, etc. AFAIK, it doesn't say anything about such issues.
  4. A brief discussion of the protocol would be helpful. I had to read about WebDAV at Wikipedia and elsewhere to learn that it's a file-system protocol built on HTTP. Only once I understood this did I understand why the WebDAV option is only under HTTP/S. Mentioning this in the documentation would save time for users, like myself, whose prior exposure to WebDAV has only been retrieving a URL and connecting to it.
  5. Ditto for the fact that WebDAV applies to shares. As someone familiar with Unix, it helped to understand that the root directory of a share is used as a mount point and that multiple volumes (shares) can be mounted as distinct WebDAV file systems.
  6. Based on #5, I could understand that the WebDAV path needed the (case-sensitive) share name as the last part of the path. But I don't think most potential users would make this leap. It wouldn't hurt to say this explicitly in a sentence or two.
  7. Both the software and documentation need to deal with where to get and how to install SSL certificates.

I learned quite a bit from this process, but I really just needed to get WebDAV up and working. We shouldn't need to search the Internet for days to figure this out.

Message 3 of 4
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Can't get WebDAV to work properly

Hello ToolBar,

 

I can say that is a very informative post. Thank you for sharing!

 

Please feel free to come back and post any suggestions, inquiries and questions.

 

Regards,

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