How do I access webdav?
Asked by Anthony Newnam:

I am able to access Confluence at <https://confluence.DOMAINHERE.com:8453/plugins/servlet/confluence/default>, but I don't know what that is supposed to correspond to when mapping it to a drive. If I do map network drive and then enter that URL, it says "The folder you entered does not appear to be valid.". If I try using Start-\>Run and I enter, "\\\\confluence.DOMAINHERE.com:8453@SSL/plugins/servlet/confluence/default" and it fails as well.


Answers:
author: Andrew Frayling
body: Hi,

Have a look at <http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Configuring+a+WebDAV+client+for+Confluence> as there are strict conditions that have to be met for drive mapping to work, including Confluence being accessible via HTTP on port 80.

Andrew.

comments: author: Anthony Newnam
body: Thanks. I saw that, but I was hoping it was only for "Windows Network Drive." Under "Windows Web Folder," these restrictions aren't mentioned.

Is there no way then for me to use this functionality without non-encrypted access? Is this something that would change in the future? Webdav seems incredibly useful.


author: Andrew Frayling
body: Web Folders \*should\* work with SSL, but the problem is that native WevDAV support in Windows is very flakey and the restrictions listed in the Confluence documentation aren't Confluence restrictions, they're Windows restrictions.

You could have a look at the troubleshooting docs - <http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFKB/Troubleshooting+WebDAV> - to see if there are any problems on the Confluence side, but I suspect that the problems you're hitting are coming from Windows.

Could you try a 3rd pary client such as BitKinex - <http://www.bitkinex.com/webdavclient/> - just to see if you can get a connection?

Also, it might be worth searching the Microsoft Knowledge base for any potential hot fixes for your version of Windows, I know that there were some for XP and Vista.

Andrew.


author: Anthony Newnam
body: Thanks! Using BitKinex worked for me. It seems a little buggy itself, but it at least connects.

Is WebDAV not very heavily used with Confluence right now? I've seen a few problems off the bat: locking on my page doesn't seem to do anything. A lot of operations I try and they get added to the queue, but they don't go through. The worst problem is that it adds a lot of extra space to my pages, so when I do a save in my local editor which looks fine, Confluence is adding in line breaks; perhaps some Windows newlines are getting added in when Confluence locally stores it with \\n?

Perhaps I should make another question on here to ask about these issues?


author: Andrew Frayling
body: Glad you had some success with another client.

I'm not sure on the wider picture, but my personal experience is that WebDAV has not been heavily used at the places where I've used Confluence. It's handy for doing a big bulk upload of content where the pain of fixing formatting issues would be overshadowed by the pain of uploading files one by one, but that's about all I've seen it used for.

I've seen the extra line breaks issue before, but never came up with a fix for it other than manually editing the pages in Confluence to fix up the formatting. It probably is best to start a new question on here for these issues with WebDAV as things get a bit confusing, and other people may miss the question, if it's buried inside another thread.

Andrew.


author: MattS
body: I think for bulk work in Confluence most people use the Confluence CLI add-on from Bob Swift


Tags: webdav