mjhjmtu

I'm looking to completely decommission my SMBA service and replace it with a WebDav service.

All the google searches so far have pointed me to using Apache / Webdav. This is close to what I need but as far as I read it requires Apache to have access to my user's files and worse; if it creates a file the new file will be owned by Apache (not the user). Note that having files with the correct Unix ownership and permissions is a requirement as some users have direct SSH access.

So I'm quite simply looking for a way to either make Apache / Webdav work "correctly" with multi-users (that is change unix user to the logged in user before attempting to serve the file) or find a complete alternative to Apache / Webdav.

So far searches haven't turned anything up.

This may be worth to read:
Another input: multiple user folders and one shared folder
http://hexeract.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/configure-a-webdav-enabled-webserver-for-multiple-user-folders-and-one-shared-folder/

I used this one as guide to set up webdav:
http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/75-debian/62-debian-webdav-share

yes, Apache is the group (www-data under Debian) but you can add users to that group, so I added one user. Did not test why you may not add other users....
The webdav server using in principle this setup runs now for 3 yrs at my and my sons place (so 2 identical servers for the work of my son). Debian 6 is since some months the LTS version (till Feb-2016).

Compared to Bernaerts I adapted in the Apache file:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/default this part of configuration.

Alias /webdav1 /data/webdav1

<Location /webdav1>
DAV on
Authtype Basic
Authname "webdav1"
AuthUserFile /var/www/web1/passwd1.dav
Require valid-user
</location>

So my files are no longer under www but in /data/webdav1 (through alias webdav1 to keep it short)
For each hard disk I've created such a section and webdav1 becomes webdav2 for the 2nd hard disk in that section. We can build in max 10 hard disks in these servers, so 10 of these section in that config file. I added the user to www-data, davfs2 and davfs, so that the user can have access the webdav folder(s). So the user need to login and will be asked for the username and password.
In fstab all the webdav data disks are listed so that mounting proceeds automaticallly.
That part of fstab:

/dev/sda3 /data/webdav1 ext3, user,auto 0 0

Have you tried OwnCloud? Still just testing it myself, but it sounds like it fills your requirements: webdav works out-of-the-box.

Having searched for a long time I just couldn't find one. There are many multi user servers but I couldn't find one which executed as the system user.

So I wrote one myself. This is only tested as far as I can test it myself. But for what its worth, the source code is here:

https://github.com/couling/WebDAV-Daemon

Hy,

I was looking for same thing and I finally gathered a solution using apache2.
I tried node solution using npm webdav-server and found out not all worked as nicely then using the apache module.
Then I tried a npm dav-server based on jsDAV that could do better and could be a solution, but as I had to deal with lousy 3g connection I preferred apache and found out about multiple instance scripts.

So here I share my experience.

http://helpcenter.epages.com/Doc/doc/apache2/README.multiple-instances

I run an instance per webdav user... not very scalable, but to work in a small team it's good enough.

Replace myUser with your user.

On Ubuntu 14.04

sh /usr/share/doc/apache2/examples/setup-instance myUser

So I run a apache process as user myUser defined in /etc/apache2-myUser/envars

export APACHE_RUN_USER=myUser
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=myUser

Edit ports.conf

# If you proxy with nginx as I did better to limit to local interface
listen localhost:8080
# listen 8080

I could not get PAM auth on ubuntu 14.04 to work so need to trick with basic auth as I then wrap it in https with nginx

htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/htpasswd myUser

Then /etc/apache2-myUser/sites-available/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:8080>

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

Alias /$APACHE_RUN_USER /home/$APACHE_RUN_USER
<Directory /home/$APACHE_RUN_USER>
 Require all granted
 Options +Indexes
</Directory>

<Location /$APACHE_RUN_USER>
 DAV On
 AuthType Basic
 AuthName "Restricted Area"
 AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/htpasswd
 Require valid-user
</Location>

DavLockDB /home/$APACHE_RUN_USER/.DavLock
ErrorLog $APACHE_LOG_DIR/error.log
CustomLog $APACHE_LOG_DIR/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

then nginx proxy has a trick with header Destination
passing icons folder lets webdav downgrade nicely on browsers

server 
listen 443 ssl http2;
server_name exemple.com;

location ~ ^/(myUser

There is no obligation to use nginx as proxy, apache could very well do the https, but as I bumped into the proxy Destination issue I felt it was worth mentioning it.

I'm also looking for a similar solution.

Solution 1:
Your desktop environment (Gnome, KDE) might have widgets to expose a certain folder by WebDAV. This will run as long as your desktop environment is running and is not a daemon solution.

Solution 2:
Nothing stops you from running Apache under your own user binding on unprivileged ports above 1024. Just write a configuration file or copy the ones bundled in your distribution to your $HOME/etc/httpd (just an example), add DAV-related config and run it as your own non-root user like:

$ httpd -f $HOME/etc/httpd

Running as your users ensures Apache will create files as you.