Easy! IT | WEB | WebDAV

This article is a rough explanation of WebDAV.

Everything might be not exactly correct in this article but it’s very useful for beginners to understand IT terms. If you want to learn IT but you don’t have any experience to work in the IT industry, I wish it helps you to understand IT. And I hope this article makes you study IT more.

Let’s start our 3 minutes lesson!

What is WebDAV?

WebDAV is an abbreviation for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning.
WebDAV is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
WebDAV is used to exchange documents with HTTP.

1. Overview – Why WebDAV?

WebDAV is an abbreviation for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning. It is mainly used to share and edit files. The server provides document files and directories to the web clients. WebDAV is an extension of HTTP.

What is HTTP? Easy! IT | WEB | HyperText Transfer Protocol | Japan Teams

You can use those files and directories as if you use them on your laptop. This system is called a fileserver system or online storage system.

When do people choose WebDAV systems?

Actually, people usually use FTP systems when they exchange files, especially when using the Linux systems or the file size is big. But you can’t use FTP sometimes because of Firewall.

**The firewall sometimes blocks FTP ports.**

And what’s more, FTP, SCP and sftp which are remote file management systems transfer data via sftp. Those services require to implementation of software or configure additional network settings. But what you need to use WebDAV is to make WebDAV enable, then all that you need to prepare for is a web browser and the server which provides HTTP. You can also use WebDAV with HTTPS.

2. Risks on using WebDAV

1. Security

HTTP can’t make data encrypted, so usually SSL/TLS is implemented for the remote management. And also if you need additional security settings. Especially access control is super important. Because if you misconfigure the settings, all public internet users can see all your files or access folders.

What is HTTPS? Easy! IT | WEB | HTTPS | Japan Teams

2. Quality

HTTP is not the protocol to exchange or share files. Compared with FTP, WebDAV communication is not fast and stable. And recently, there are many cloud services as SaaS. So, recently the companies don’t adopt WebDAV as a storage service.