Tiny Howto: HTTP PUT

mod_dav - Apache HTTP Server

I'm a big fan of making use of the HTTP PUT protocol when you need to quickly publish files from one server to another. It's trivial to whip up a java client using HttpClient, and writing one from scratch isn't bad. Heck, I wrote very usable command line client using bash and netcat.

The only problem with PUT, is that I can never remember how to configure Apache to accept PUT requests.

There is a reference to mod_put around. But it turns out that if you use Apache 2.x it's even easier than that.

Simply add the following to your server:

  DavLockDB /usr/local/apache2/var/DavLock

  <Location /foo>
   Dav On
  <Location>

And poof, /foo can now support PUT access. You can read all about the details of this here.

Naturally, you'll want to put some access controls on this directory -- but that's a tip for another day.