WebDAV extension¶

In the document below, we assume your seafile installation folder is /opt/seafile.

Config WebDAV extension¶

The configuration file is /opt/seafile/conf/seafdav.conf. If it is not created already, you can just create the file.

[WEBDAV]

# Default is false. Change it to true to enable SeafDAV server.
enabled = true

port = 8080

# If you deploy seafdav behind nginx/apache, you need to modify "share_name".
share_name = /

# SeafDAV uses Gunicorn as web server.
# This option maps to Gunicorn's 'workers' setting. https://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/settings.html?#workers
# By default it's set to 5 processes.
workers = 5

# This option maps to Gunicorn's 'timeout' setting. https://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/settings.html?#timeout
# By default it's set to 1200 seconds, to support large file uploads.
timeout = 1200

Every time the configuration is modified, you need to restart seafile server to make it take effect.

./seafile.sh restart

Your WebDAV client would visit the Seafile WebDAV server at http://example.com:8080

In Pro edition 7.1.8 version and community edition 7.1.5, an option is added to append library ID to the library name returned by SeafDAV.

show_repo_id=true

Proxy with Nginx¶

For Seafdav, the configuration of Nginx is as follows:

.....
    location /seafdav {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:8080/seafdav;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_read_timeout  1200s;
        client_max_body_size 0;

        access_log      /var/log/nginx/seafdav.access.log seafileformat;
        error_log       /var/log/nginx/seafdav.error.log;
    }

Proxy with Apache¶

For Seafdav, the configuration of Apache is as follows:

......
    <Location /seafdav>
        ProxyPass "http://127.0.0.1:8080/seafdav"
    </Location>

Notes on Clients¶

Please first note that, there are some known performance limitation when you map a Seafile webdav server as a local file system (or network drive).

Uploading large number of files at once is usually much slower than the syncing client. That's because each file needs to be committed separately.
The access to the webdav server may be slow sometimes. That's because the local file system driver sends a lot of unnecessary requests to get the files' attributes.

So WebDAV is more suitable for infrequent file access. If you want better performance, please use the sync client instead.

Windows¶

Windows Explorer supports HTTPS connection. But it requires a valid certificate on the server. It's generally recommended to use Windows Explorer to map a webdav server as network dirve. If you use a self-signed certificate, you have to add the certificate's CA into Windows' system CA store.

Linux¶

On Linux you have more choices. You can use file manager such as Nautilus to connect to webdav server. Or you can use davfs2 from the command line.

To use davfs2

sudo apt-get install davfs2
sudo mount -t davfs -o uid=<username> https://example.com/seafdav /media/seafdav/

The -o option sets the owner of the mounted directory to so that it's writable for non-root users.

It's recommended to disable LOCK operation for davfs2. You have to edit /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf

 use_locks       0

Mac OS X¶

Finder's support for WebDAV is also not very stable and slow. So it is recommended to use a webdav client software such as Cyberduck.

Frequently Asked Questions¶

Clients can't connect to seafdav server¶

By default, seafdav is disabled. Check whether you have enabled = true in seafdav.conf. If not, modify it and restart seafile server.

The client gets "Error: 404 Not Found"¶

If you deploy SeafDAV behind Nginx/Apache, make sure to change the value of share_name as the sample configuration above. Restart your seafile server and try again.

Windows Explorer reports "file size exceeds the limit allowed and cannot be saved"¶

This happens when you map webdav as a network drive, and tries to copy a file larger than about 50MB from the network drive to a local folder.

This is because Windows Explorer has a limit of the file size downloaded from webdav server. To make this size large, change the registry entry on the client machine. There is a registry key named FileSizeLimitInBytes under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Services -> WebClient -> Parameters.