Connecting WebDAV to Liferay Portal Running Behind a Web Server

This article documents how to connect to Liferay WebDAV folders and files from a WebDAV client if Liferay Portal is running behind a web server.

Specifically, this issue was found using the IBM WebSphere application server and IBM's HTTP Server (commonly abbreviated IHS). Clients have experienced a 403 Unauthorized Error in their browsers and internal code 500 errors. The reason, according to IBM, is that by default IBM's web server plug-in configuration is set to false. When set to false, only POST and PUT requests are accepted. Changing this to true will accept all requests such as the WebDAV PROFIND method.

Resolution

1. Stop all HTTP server processes.
2. Stop all WebSphere application server processes.
3. Generate the plugin-cfg.xml for each profile created.
   • On Windows, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\bin
   • On UNIX\LINUX, navigate to \was_install_dir\bin
   • Run the command GenPluginCfg.bat|.sh –profileName profile_name
4. Navigate to where the plugin-cfg.xml is generated. The command prompt will state where the file is located (e.g. C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01\config\cells\plugin-cfg.xml)
5. Open the XML file and find the property AcceptALLContent=. By default, it is set to false. Change this property to true. Please note that newer versions of WebSphere Application Server do set this property to true.
6. If there are more than one plugin-cfg.xml, use the pluginMerge tool to merge the configurations.
7. Copy the plugin-cfg.xml to the location specified in the IHS' \conf\httpd.conf file.
8. Start the IBM HTTP Server again.
9. Start the IBM WebSphere application server.
10. Connect the WebDAV client to Liferay's Documents and Media.

Additional Information

• IBM-Support: WEBDav PROPFIND method fails with HTTP 500 Internal Server Error when AcceptAllContent=false
• Manually Configuring the IBM HTTP Server V7.0 Plugin for Routing Client Requests