14.13. Using WebDAV and SharePoint¶

14.13.1. About this Guide¶

We created this Users Guide as the starting resource for those interested in using SFTPPlus for file transfers involving WebDAV over HTTPS.

The product roadmap will include further support for more WebDAV features.

Please see the WebDAV operations page for the current features in detail.

If there is a particular scenario or guide that is not addressed here, feel free to contact us.

14.13.2. Connecting with locations under proxy¶

A WebDAV resource location under a proxy is supported.

Add the proxy details either in the webdavs location's configuration in the Web Manager or in the text configuration file:

[locations/b9787c72-2c8b-4725-a049-ee628aa0abc1]
name = webdavs
proxy = connect://localhost:8899

To ensure that the connection is not refused by the other side, the proxy configuration should match your network's correct proxy configuration.

14.13.3. Troubleshooting audit events¶

The SFTPPlus audit events will provide details in regards to WebDAV transfer failures.

In most cases, the details are brief as this is what is advertised by the remote server. To obtain more details, you will need to contact the team/person in charge of the remote team and ask for the server-side activity/logs.

As you can observe in the example below, only the error or status code is provided by the server, which shows the 409:CONFLICT status code:

| 60036 2017-05-29 17:45:07 Process Process 0.0.0.0:0 Failed to close
  "/ACME/Documents/report.doc" on location "webdavs". Was opened for
  writing. Failed to upload. (/ACME/Documents/report.doc) 409:CONFLICT

14.13.4. Example of a transfer configuration¶

To get you started using the SFTPPlus transfers functionality, we have included example transfer configurations using WebDAV as the location. The SFTPPlus Web Manager can be used to configure transfers, but there is a text configuration file available. The examples below can be added in the configuration file or modified in the Web Manager.

The example below will create a new webdavs location using the Sharepoint Online credentials at the specified Sharepoint Online address and port:

[locations/b9787c72-2c8b-4725-a049-ee628aa0abc1]
name = webdavs-acme-location
description = Location for the Sharepoint Online server.
type = webdavs
address = acme.sharepoint.com
port = 443
username = user@acme.onmicrosoft.com
password = password
authentication_method = sharepoint-online
connection_retry_count = 0
connection_retry_interval = 30

To define the source or destination path on SharePoint Online, you will configure the transfer with a path using the following convention:

/SITE-NAME/Library Name/Path to/some folder/

Where:

• SITE-NAME is the name of the SharePoint site

• Library Name is the name of a library from the SharePoint site

• Path to/some folder is any path or sub-path to the folder to and from where files are transferred.

The example below will set up an automatic transfer to move files from a local disk as indicated by the source_path to a remote SharePoint online folder as indicated by the destination_path. This example references the previously created location UUID from the above example, called webdavs-acme-location:

[transfers/e16af067-8974-4c0d-ae89-eb5f3d59fd65]
enabled = yes
name = webdavs-move-non-recursive
recursive = No
source_uuid =
source_path = ./acme/webdav-transfers/shared
destination_uuid = webdavs-acme-location
destination_path = /acme-webdav/Shared/HR-Department
stable_interval = 0.5
changes_poll_interval = 5

For further details about the rest of the transfer configuration options available in SFTPPlus, please go to the dedicated Transfers page.

14.13.5. Securing connection to SharePoint Online¶

SFTPPlus will not automatically trust the certificates presented by any HTTPS server and this includes the SharePoint server.

You need to manually instruct SFTPPlus to validate the certificates against a list of certificate authorities (CA) which you trust.

The CDP X.509 extension is not yet supported for HTTPS client-side connections so if you want to use CRL, you need to manually configure them.

Here is a sample configuration for SharePoint online:

[locations/0ef580fe-45cb-47e0-b434-c0e44557b364]
ssl_certificate_authority = ${MICROSOFT_IT_CA}