WebDAV client in ruby

Dan Sosedoff — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:03:30 +0000

Here is a simple example how to make native WebDAV client with Ruby sockets. No additional gems or extensions needed – just all basic classes.

class WebDAV
	attr_reader :host, :port, :protocol, :chunk_size
	@socket = nil
 
	def initialize(host,port=80,protocol='HTTP/1.1',chunk=8096)
		@host = host.to_s
		@port = port.to_i
		@protocol = protocol
		@chunk_size = chunk.to_i
	end
 
	def build_header(method, path, content_length=nil)
		header = "#{method} #{path} #{@protocol} \r\n"
		header += "Content-Length: #{content_length}\r\n" if !content_length.nil?
		header += "Host: #{@host}\r\n"
		header += "Connection: close\r\n\r\n"
		return header
	end
 
	def request(method, path)
		open
		header = build_header(method, path)
		if @socket.write(header) == header.length then
			return @socket.gets.split[1]
		end
	end
 
	def delete(path)
		request('DELETE', path)
	end
 
	def head(path)
		request('HEAD', path)
	end
 
	def mkcol(path)
		request('MKCOL', path)
	end
 
	def put(path, localfile, auto_head=true)
		if !File.exists?(localfile) || !File.readable?(localfile)
			raise "File not exists or not accessible for reading!"
		end
 
		open
 
		datalen = File.size(localfile)
		header = build_header('PUT', path, datalen)
 
		begin
			if @socket.write(header) == header.length then
				written = 0
				File.open(localfile,'r') do |f| 
					until f.eof? do
						written += @socket.write(f.read(@chunk_size))
					end
				end
 
				if written == datalen
					close
					if !auto_head
						return true
					else
						return head(path)
					end
				end
			end
		rescue Exception => e
			puts e
			return false
		end
	end
 
	def open
		begin 
			@socket = TCPSocket.open(@host,@port)
			return true
		rescue Exception => e
			puts e
			return false
		end
	end
 
	def close
		begin
			return @socket.close
		rescue 
			return false
		end
	end
end

This class supports only basic http/dav methods (PUT, DELETE, MKCOL, HEAD) and can be extended very easily and designed to work with all files, reading them by small chunks (default is 8096 bytes).
Im using this class sometimes with nginx.

Deps:

require 'socket'
require 'digest'

Usage:

# create connection
conn = WebDAV.new('your.host.com')
 
# upload file (without autocheck), return true/false value
result = conn.put('/test.mp3','/home/.../..../..../file.mp3', false)
 
# upload file with autocheck, returns http response code (201, 404, ... ) so you`ll know what exactly happened
result = conn.put('/test2.mp3','/home/.../file.mp3')

Also, here is a wrapper class to produce MD5, SHA1 file hashes that supports big files.

class FileHash 
	def self.md5(path)
		d = Digest::MD5.new
		File.open(path,'r') do |f| 
			d.update(f.read(8192)) until f.eof?
		end
		return d.hexdigest
	end
 
	def self.sha1(path)
		d = Digest::SHA1.new
		File.open(path,'r') do |f| 
			d.update(f.read(8192)) until f.eof?
		end
		return d.hexdigest
	end
end

Usage:

FileHash.md5('/path/to/file')
FileHash.sha1('/path/to/file')

This webdav class not pretending to be stable in production environment, but can be useful for some “one-time” tasks with less code.

Configuring WebDAV Server

Dan Sosedoff — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:24:32 +0000

Some time ago i had reason to make couple servers being accessible by WebDAV protocol.
But all our special storage servers were running nginx 0.6.x, that also supports this protocol.
By the way, it doesn`t support meta commands such as PROPFIND, OPTIONS, so if you try to connect to server with some command-line or GUI client it will close connection due to accepting “unknown” commands, but will work only with PUT, DELETE, COPY, MOVE, MKCOL requests.
It was a huge problem, because for a long time i couldn`t figure out what the reason of reject. Server allways respond with ‘405 Not allowed’. But when i tried put file – it worked.
Also, alternate fast server Lighttpd supports all meta commands.

Simple nginx configuration:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;
    access_log log/access.log;
    error_log log/error.log;
    charset utf-8;
    client_body_temp_path client_body_temp;
    autoindex on;
 
     location / {
          root /home/dav/public;
          dav_methods PUT DELETE MKCOL COPY MOVE;
          dav_access user:rw group:rw all:r;
          create_full_put_path on;
 
          # auth access
          auth_basic "Restricted";
          auth_basic_user_file ;
     }
}

After configuring server, you`ll need to create htpassword file, that will keep user credentials.
Simple example:

htpasswd -c /where/to/save/the/file username

More information about how to configure nginx can be found at http://wiki.codemongers.com/NginxModules

dan.thoughts » webdav

WebDAV client in ruby

Configuring WebDAV Server