Subject: Do server store arbitrary content

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:26:04 -0800

I have a questions for the WG. Can servers, within policy constraints, be
expected to store arbitrary data. What I mean be the policy constraints is
clearly a server might reject a request because it was too large, or it
decided the file had a virus and it would not store it. But in general, can
a client expect a WebDAV serve to be able to store say a HTML file?

---

From: Geoffrey M Clemm <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:33:16 -0500

Yes, I would expect a WebDV server to be able to store arbitrary content
(within the kinds of policy constraints that you mention).

Cheers,
Geoff

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 23:33:28 +0100

> a client expect a WebDAV serve to be able to store say a HTML file?

In general, no it can't. There are servers that accept only particular 
types of content (such as something running on top of an XML database).

Would it be useful to allow clients to discover support for these kinds 
of things upfront? Sure, that's exactly I'd be happy to define a profile 
and give it a compliance class name for use in the DAV header (for example).

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Geoffrey M Clemm <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:46:52 -0500

OK, I'll also change my vote to "no" (:-).  The repositories I build are 
"general content" repositories, but even they have sections of the 
namespace (such as where "activities" live) which do not support arbitrary 
content.  I can see other applications (such as calendar management 
applications) which would disallow arbitrary content (or at least severely 
restrict where it can be placed).

Cheers,
Geoff

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:33:54 -0800

> and give it a compliance class name for use in the DAV header (for example).

You keep mentioning the XML database but I would have expected them to save
non XML data as more or less a BLOB. Am I missing something key here?

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:38:03 +0100

> non XML data as more or less a BLOB. Am I missing something key here?

You may or you may not. I can only provide hear-say here (I was 
referring to Slide running on top of certain Tamino instances; that's 
Software AG's XML database).

Another example (as discussed before) would be a Calendar (CalDAV) or a 
Newsfeed (Atompub) server. Both may restrict the type of content you can 
put in specific places.

Best regards, Julian

ived: (qmail invoked by alias); 14 Dec 2005 02:39:43 -0000
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:38:03 +0100
From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
To: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
CC: WebDav <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Do server store arbitrary content
Resent-From: [email-masked]
Sender: [email-masked]
Resent-Sender: [email-masked]
Resent-Message-Id: <[email-masked]>
Resent-Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 02:39:56 +0000

> non XML data as more or less a BLOB. Am I missing something key here?

You may or you may not. I can only provide hear-say here (I was 
referring to Slide running on top of certain Tamino instances; that's 
Software AG's XML database).

Another example (as discussed before) would be a Calendar (CalDAV) or a 
Newsfeed (Atompub) server. Both may restrict the type of content you can 
put in specific places.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:34:16 -0800

Perhaps we should set a precedent for content-limited servers not to 
advertise themselves as being fully functional WebDAV servers.   That 
would go for those CalDAV servers that can't handle non-event data in 
calendars too, at least that restriction could be advertised on those 
types of collections.  There are probably a couple other restrictions I 
would consider major hurdles for clients expecting to "do their WebDAV 
thing" -- possibly some of the weak or no ETag cases or wierd 
creationdate cases we've discussed before.

Lisa

On Dec 13, 2005, at 6:38 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Another example (as discussed before) would be a Calendar (CalDAV) or 
> a Newsfeed (Atompub) server. Both may restrict the type of content you 
> can put in specific places.
>
> Best regards, Julian
>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:22:47 +0100

> creationdate cases we've discussed before.

I note that we seem to converge on this being something that clients 
should be able to discover.

The question remains whether this is something RFC2518 allows today (my 
position). In this case, new requirements should be explicitly spelled 
out (Etags types, Etag returned upon PUT?, binary content allowed?, 
...?) and given a name (potentially a discoverable compliance class).

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:22:50 -0800

I think any future RFC could define something that was an restricted version
of DAV.

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:25:12 -0800

Sorry, another ignorant question ... Is there any text in 2518 that hints at
or leads to the conclusion that arbitrary content is not supported?

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 10:08:08 +0100

> or leads to the conclusion that arbitrary content is not supported?

No. On the other hand, there's also no text hinting into the other 
direction.

We're talking here about PUT, and that really is normatively defined in 
RFC2616.

Best regards, Julian