# Per user webdav access to their home directories? **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [April 23, 2012, 9:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186 "2012-04-23T09:51:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dubstep)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 9:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186/1 "2012-04-23T09:51:12Z")
Hello I would like to know if the following is possible with NGINX : Setup a PERSONAL webdav access to our users, that is giving access to their unix home directories thru a secure webdav. If I understand well the main problem is the httpd process has to switch to the user’s identity after authentication ( LDAP ) to let him have RW access to his workspace. Is it possible with the nginx beast ? If yes, links to documentation would be welcome ! Thank you ---
**Author:** ![fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fburleigh)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186/2 "2012-04-23T15:53:01Z")
On 23/04/2012 08:50, Frank B. wrote: > to let him have RW access to his workspace. > > Is it possible with the nginx beast ? > If yes, links to documentation would be welcome ! > > Thank you Another option seems to be to run a webdav client via some kind of CGI. There is a PHP library which gets plenty of recommendations. I’m going to be investigating the Mojolicious webdav library because it looks easy to extend and integrate into my environment (depends if you have the capability to do some development). There is also a promising looking Perl DAV implementation I also came across a dav implementation testing tool. Don’t have the name at my fingertips, but it seems like a rather good idea to run it against your proposed implementation to at least baseline the kinds of issues you can look forward to later. If you want to use nginx then I think it works ok if you collect together the various patches and apply permissions via nginx permission levels. Not tried though as I decided the authentication wasn’t likely to be flexible enough for my needs (probably the fastest option though?) Good luck Ed W ---
**Author:** ![fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fburleigh)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186/3 "2012-04-23T16:32:15Z")
On 04/23/2012 03:52 PM, Ed W wrote: > > has to switch to the user’s identity after authentication ( LDAP ) > > it looks easy to extend and integrate into my environment (depends if > > permission levels. Not tried though as I decided the authentication > > wasn’t likely to be flexible enough for my needs (probably the fastest > > option though?) > > Good luck > > Ed W Hello I’m affraid not being a developper only an admin 🙂 I was asking in case of such function do exists … I really think it would be a great help for our users but I am unable to write it … anyway thanks for your answer/explains ! ---
**Author:** ![fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fburleigh)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 1:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186/4 "2012-04-24T13:25:43Z")
On 04/23/2012 03:52 PM, Ed W wrote: > > has to switch to the user’s identity after authentication ( LDAP ) > > it looks easy to extend and integrate into my environment (depends if > > permission levels. Not tried though as I decided the authentication > > wasn’t likely to be flexible enough for my needs (probably the fastest > > option though?) > > Good luck > > Ed W hello again maybe there are “cloud like” applications running under nginx ? my goal is to let users manage their workspace thru user friendly interfaces , webdav seems a solution IF the http server know how to switch to userid. I know this is a potential security problem but I also know there are really GOOD programmers around there 🙂 This function would be really practical with mobile devices. ---
**Author:** ![fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@fburleigh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fburleigh)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 1:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/per-user-webdav-access-to-their-home-directories/219186/5 "2012-04-23T13:31:31Z")
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 09:50:26AM +0200, Frank B. wrote: Hi there, > Setup a PERSONAL webdav access to our users, that is giving > access to their unix home directories thru a secure webdav. > > If I understand well the main problem is the httpd process > has to switch to the user’s identity after authentication ( LDAP ) > to let him have RW access to his workspace. Untested; but I would suggest running one webdav instance per user, under that userid. Then run one “public” web server, which checks identity and does a proxy\_pass or something similar to the correct webdav instance. That way the httpd process doesn’t have to care about switching identities; it just acts as a client to another service which has the right identity already. (Depending on how you choose to deploy the webdav server, it may be pure-nginx, or it may include something like a separate fastcgi server. The userid of whatever process is accessing the files will need to be correct.) > Is it possible with the nginx beast ? > If yes, links to documentation would be welcome ! You can “listen” on a unix:path, and you can “proxy\_pass” to that path, choosing which one to used based on a variable set based on the authenticated user. So after you have webdav access as a single user working, you just repeat that setup. ## f Francis D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)