Professional Microsoft IIS 8

WebDAV Publishing

Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is an HTTP extension designed to allow editing and versioning of web-based files. As an extension, WebDAV adds protocols to HTTP that allow you to create and delete folders, transfer files, lock files, and determine ownership and update properties. This is, essentially, the original goal that the web designers had in mind—the ability to collaborate and share information.

WebDAV is still a usable protocol, although it has fallen out of favor as technologies such as Web Deploy have taken its place. An alternative to FTP, WebDAV, like Web Deploy, uses HTTP transports and will normally operate through firewalls that will pass web traffic. Microsoft used a previous concept of Web Folders—Windows folders accessible across a HTTP connection—that had limitations in both extensibility and compatibility with non-Windows clients. WebDAV is now fully compliant with RTFC 4918, which defines WebDAV. WebDAV is also fully supported by many current client operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Apple systems.

For the purposes of IIS 8.0, WebDAV is primarily relevant as a publishing alternative to FTP. In IIS 8.0, WebDAV is integrated to IIS Manager and supports locking mechanisms to prevent accidental updates and overwrites of application files. WebDAV is supported over SSL connections and supports authoring rules based on specific URLs.

Installing and Configuring WebDAV

Open Server Manager and use the Add Roles and Features ...