Co-Authoring Microsoft Applications on Apache using WebDAV

In this article I am going to explain how to co-author a document on Apache server. First let’s understand what is co-authoring. When multiple people can work together on a document at the same time is called co-authoring.

Now let’s discuss what all is needed to co-author a document.

To co-author with others, we need a shared storage that’s Apache with WebDAV and applications those support co-authoring that’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

WebDAV module provides authoring and versioning functionalities for Apache. This module must be loaded at runtime using LoadModule directive.

The module must be enabled in httpd.conf file. The DAV file system is implemented by mod_dav_fs module. So this is a dependent module for WebDAV. And the DAV lock database must be in a global section.

For example

DavLockDB "/usr/local/apache2/var/DavLock"
<Directory "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/foo">
    Dav On
</Directory>

This means WebDAV is enabled in “foo” directory.

Now the directory is publicly accessible through HTTP request. To protect the document you can apply HTTP Basic Authentication or HTTP Digest Authentication. That is provided by mod_auth_digest module.

For more information please visit Apache Module mod_dav.

Hope this helps.