What Is WebDAV?

Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is a protocol that allows users to access and share Web documents as if they were on a local file server. It extends HTTP 1.1, the standard protocol used to transfer content over the Web. WebDAV duplicates some features offered by file-sharing protocols such as FTP and the Common Internet File System (CIFS). However, the WebDAV protocol adds features specific to distributed authoring. For example, WebDAV’s use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for storing information about documents allows arbitrary document properties, such as author, title, and subject, to be stored. Additionally, most file-sharing protocols don’t include native support for versioning, something that WebDAV will provide when it is complete.

Specifically, WebDAV adds the following features to HTTP 1.1:

File system-like access. An application that supports WebDAV allows a user to access documents on a Web server from within the application. Additionally, WebDAV allows a user to retrieve a hierarchical listing of content on a Web server similar to a file directory listing.