WebDAV Share

WebDAV is an HTTP based file transfer protocol. It's integrated into Windows, GNOME, KDE and many programs for backups, file sharing and media players.

It's installed as a plugin for a web server. Unfortunately OpenWrt's uhttpd doesn't support it. If you have enough space you can install Lighttpd webserver and configure WebDAV share.

Assuming that USB drive is mounted to /srv/disk/ folder.

mkdir -p /etc/lighttpd/conf.d /srv/disk/dav /var/lib/lighttpd
chown http:www-data /srv/disk/dav /var/lib/lighttpd
cat << "EOF" > /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/99-disk.conf
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/dav($|/)" {
  server.document-root := "/srv/disk/"
  auth.backend = "plain"
  auth.backend.plain.userfile = "/etc/lighttpd/webdav.shadow"
  auth.require = (
    "/dav/" => ("method" => "basic", "realm" => "disk", "require" => "valid-user")
  )
}
EOF
opkg update
opkg install lighttpd-mod-auth lighttpd-mod-authn_file lighttpd-mod-webdav

Now set a password:

echo "youruser:somesecret" > /etc/lighttpd/webdav.shadow

Note: your secret is not encoded and saved on router in clear text for a better performance. If a hacker get access to the file it can see your password. So don't put here a password that you are using anywhere else. Just generate a new one for example with the command:

< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c${1:-32}; echo

And finally restart Lighttpd:

/etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Open in a browser http://192.168.1.1/dav/ and you'll be prompted for credentials. After login you'll see a directory listing but this not yet a WebDAV, just an additional feature.

To connect to WebDAV see Accessing WebDAV Server.

To test WebDAV from command line use cadaver:

cadaver http://192.168.1.1/dav/
Authentication required for webdav on server `192.168.1.1':
Username: youruser
Password: 
dav:/dav/> ls
Listing collection `/dav/': succeeded.
    README.txt
dav:/dav/> cat README.txt 
Displaying `/dav/README.txt':
It works!
dav:/dav/> exit
Connection to `192.168.1.1' closed.

If you don't want to install the cadaver you can test with a curl (replace the youruser):

curl -u youruser -X PROPFIND -H "Depth: 1" http://192.168.1.1/dav/

Please note that you must configure HTTPS if you are going to access your files from internet. See lighttpd docs: Secure HTTP

To watch the share from a browser you can install the small and nice UI webdav-js:

cat << EOF > /srv/disk/dav/index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>WebDAV</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/dom111/webdav-js/assets/css/style-min.css"/>
</head>
<body>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/dom111/webdav-js/src/webdav-min.js"/>
</body>
</html>
EOF

Then open http://192.168.1.1/dav/ and you'll see a simple file manager.

The disadvantage of the method is that it's doesn't work for subfolders i.e. when you open http://192.168.1.1/dav/Documents/ then the index.html file wont be show. That's fine for 99% of usages.

Online apps and PWAs

You can also try an online apps that can connect directly to your WebDAV share.

Diffuse a music player Source code
Supper Productivity a powerful TODO App. Source code
KeeWeb a password manager
webdave a file manager.

You'll need a CORS enabled. Here is an example https://gist.github.com/stokito/0a6274106d407ba6d9fb776e7773445d

Useful Apps

Useful mobile apps that supports WebDAV sync:

Orgzly Outliner for notes and to-do lists. Source code
CloudBeats a music player. Not FOSS!

WebDAV Share

WebDAV with Lighttpd

Test it

Don't forget about encryption!

Browser UI for the WebDAV share

Online apps and PWAs

Useful Apps

Links and docs