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JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiISP-In-A-Box: Remotely Managing Mac Web Sites Using WebDAV
If you’re using a Mac mini or any other Mac running OS X Tiger or Panther to host your web site, then you’ve probably wondered how you can update the content on your web site without sitting in front of your Mac. Today we’ll show you how to build and use your Mac’s WebDAV server to remotely manage your web site from just about anywhere. And you can use just about any computer to do it, even one of those Win thingies. All we need to do is tweak the Apache software that’s already installed with Mac OS X Tiger or Panther. When we are finished, we want a web site on your Mac that can be accessed by anyone using a garden-variety web browser without requiring a password. But we also want to be able to update the content of that web site by connecting over the Internet to the appropriate folder on the Mac using WebDAV with a username and password to keep the bad guys out. If you haven’t already read our previous article on how to use WebDAV clients and Web Folders, then start there to learn all about how to connect to a WebDAV server from another Mac, or a Windows PC, or even a Linux or UNIX computer.
As you probably know, WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. Simply put, it is an HTTP protocol extension that allows people anywhere on the Internet to collaboratively edit and manage documents and other files using the same protocol and port used for surfing the web. In the Mac world, WebDAV provides a Disk Volume on your Desktop that "looks and feels" like any other networked hard disk. In the Windows world, WebDAV is called Web Folders. They can be used like any other mapped drive in Network Neighborhood. If you’re still a little fuzzy about the WebDAV concept, think of how you link to another drive on your local area network. WebDAV gives you the same functionality across the entire Internet with virtually the same ease of use. Depending upon user privileges, of course, you can copy files to and from a WebDAV volume, and the protocol imposes versioning control through file locking to assure that multiple people with access rights don’t change the same file at the same time. Tiger and Panther versions of Mac OS X provide both a WebDAV client and server. So let’s get started.
In a nutshell, the WebDAV server setup goes like this. We’ll assume that your main web site was built in the default location on your Mac: /Library/WebServer/Documents. First, we’ll change the group owner of this folder so that we can get read and write access to it using WebDAV. Then we’ll set up a username and password system to support WebDAV access for you and whoever else you provide usernames and passwords to. Next we’ll activate the WebDAV mods in Apache which already are installed on your Mac. We’ll then reconfigure Apache a bit to support WebDAV access and formatting. And finally we’ll restart your web server and presto, WebDAV.
You don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to do this, but you do have to get your hands dirty with our favorite command-line editor, Pico. For those that care about such things, Tiger actually replaces Pico with Nano, but you still can access it by typing Pico … and it works the same way. If you’ve followed other Nerd Vittles tutorials, then this one will be a breeze. Just be sure you edit carefully and, if something does go wrong, copy your backup Apache config file back over the edited one and try again. Apache errors don’t get reported in System Preferences->Sharing when you activate your personal web server. If you have problems and want to see what’s going on, activate and then run WebMin (which we previously covered on Nerd Vittles and upgraded here a few weeks ago for Tiger). Using your browser, access WebMin and choose Servers->Apache Webserver. Then start and stop the web server from there. Errors will be reported with the line number in the config file that’s causing the problem. Ctrl-C in Pico will tell you what line number you’re on in the config file. If this sounds like I’ve had recent experience, you’d be correct. That’s part of the price you pay for being a pioneer.
Changing Group Owner of Your Web Site. Open a Terminal window, and switch to root access: sudo su. Then navigate to the following folder: cd /Library/WebServer. Change the Documents folder to the Apache group: chgrp -R www Documents. Provide write access to authorized users who connect to this WebDAV folder: chmod 775 Documents.
Security Warning: Be aware that we are opening a security hole in your web site by giving Apache write (and delete) access to your main web folder and any subdirectories. We’ve had two levels of protection for your web site: Mac OS X and Apache. Now we just have one: Apache. So you would not want to put up any type of web page, CGI script, or PHP code which allows someone using a web browser to manipulate, delete, rename, or copy files into or on your web site because of the very real risk of compromising your web site files. In short, the only things now standing between your web site and the bad guys are your web pages and Apache’s internal security mechanisms. While Apache has a rock-solid track record insofar as bugs and security are concerned, there’s still always a risk. And we wanted you know about it up front. Did we mention the importance of frequent backups? Here’s an article that will tell you how to do that as well. If you ever decide you want to stop using WebDAV, here’s how to provide the double-layer of security protection once again. Open a Terminal window, and switch to root access: sudo su. Then navigate to the following folder: cd /Library/WebServer. Change the Documents folder back to the admin group: chgrp -R admin Documents. Even with the admin group enabled for Documents, you still can access your web sites with WebDAV. You just won’t be able to upload new documents or delete existing ones.
Building a Password File. We already built a password file in the Web Sites 101 tutorial on Nerd Vittles. We used that password file to manage web site access to various web directories. You probably don’t want to use the same password file for this WebDAV application unless you are building this for same set of users with the same privileges. The only trick to password files is you want to put the file where Apache can read it but your web visitors cannot. And you want to be careful not to insert blank lines in the file with just a colon. That basically lets everyone in. The format for the file is username:password, each on a separate line. And the passwords are encrypted. Here’s how to do it. Open a Terminal window and switch to root access: sudo su. Now move to the directory where we’ll put the password file: cd /usr/local. We’re going to name this password file website.pw so we can remember what it’s for. To create the file and erase any existing file without warning type: htpasswd -c website.pw admin. Think up a password you can remember, and you’ll be prompted to type it twice. Now let’s verify that the file was created: cat website.pw. You should see the word admin, then a colon, and then your encrypted password. To add additional users to the file, just type: htpasswd -m website.pw username where username is your next user. You’ll be prompted for the password. Remember, if you accidentally use the htpasswd -c syntax a second time, you will overwrite your existing file and all of its entries. So be careful. Finally, remember to make duplicate entries using email syntax for the username to assure that Windows clients can access your DAV resources: htpasswd -m website.pw joe@schmo.com.
Reconfiguring Apache to Support WebDAV. Open a Terminal window, and switch to root access: sudo su. Then navigate to the folder with Apache’s configuration file: cd /etc/httpd. First, let’s make a backup copy of the config file in case something goes wrong: cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.dav.save. Now let’s carefully edit the config file: pico httpd.conf. If you previously built the WebDAV server backup application which we covered on Tiger Vittles, then skip to the next paragraph. Otherwise, uncomment the headers_module line by searching for headers (Ctrl-W, headers, enter) and then pressing Ctrl-D while positioned over the # sign at the beginning of the line. Now search for mod_headers (Ctrl-W, mod_headers, enter) and uncomment that line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now search for dav_module (Ctrl-W, dav_module, enter) and uncomment the line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now search for mod_dav (Ctrl-W, mod_dav, enter) and uncomment the line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now press Ctrl-V repeatedly until you get to the bottom of the file. Switch to your web browser and download WebDAV snippet #1. When the code snippet displays in your web browser, press Command-A then Command-C to copy all of the code to your clipboard. Now switch back to Pico, click at the bottom of the config file, and paste code snippet #1 into the config file by pressing Command-V. Use the cursor keys to move to the BrowserMatch section of the code we just pasted and be sure "redirect-carefully" didn’t end up on a line by itself. If it did, position the cursor over the first letter "r" and press the backspace key to move it back up to the end of the previous line of code. Don’t worry if a dollar sign displays at the end of the line after you move it. This just indicates that additional text is off the screen.
We’ve got one more code snippet to cut and paste, and we’ll be all set. We want to search for the second occurrence of /Directory in the Apache config file: Ctrl-W,/Directory,enter,Ctrl-W,enter. Move the cursor to the beginning of the line and press Enter to open up a blank line. Now move up to the blank line by pressing the Up Arrow. Switch to your web browser and download WebDAV snippet #2. When the code snippet displays in your web browser, press Command-A then Command-C to copy all of the code to your clipboard. Now switch back to Pico, click on the blank line we inserted, and paste code snippet #2 into the config file by pressing Command-V.
That should do it. Save your Apache config file: Ctrl-X, Y, enter. And restart Apache by deselecting and then reselecting Personal Web Sharing from System Preferences->Sharing. Close the Terminal window by typing exit, pressing enter, and then pressing Command-Q.
Testing Your WebDAV Server. To test whether WebDAV is working, switch to your Desktop and, using Finder, press Command-K. When prompted for the server address, type http://localhost and then click the Connect button. Enter your username and password that you created in the website.pw password file, and your main web site folder should appear on your Desktop. Drag a file from your Desktop to the folder to be sure everything is working as it should. If you’ve enabled web access through your Mac and router firewalls (which we have previously covered here), then you should be able to access your WebDAV server from the Internet with your IP address or domain name. Just press Command-K from Finder and use the following syntax for your WebDAV resource: http://mydomain.com. For more details on using WebDAV clients or to use a Windows machine to access your WebDAV share, read our previous article on the subject here. Now you can enjoy remotely managing your web sites with WebDAV. So put on your travelling shoes!
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
Mac OS X Tiger Backups: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Now that we’ve successfully moved our ISP-In-A-Box to Tiger, we really need a backup solution that works. Our definition of "works" is that the backup copies all of your data to an external backup device, the files are intact, and you can boot your Mac from the backup drive in the event of a catastrophic failure of your main drive. Having said that, there are some other backup solutions that can duplicate all of your data but the resultant backup set is not independently bootable. In short, it’s better than nothing, but it leaves you with a good bit of work to do in the event your main drive croaks.
Our personal favorite in the Panther days was Carbon Copy Cloner in combination with psync. You can read all about it here. Unfortunately, Carbon Copy Cloner presently doesn’t work with Tiger unless you apply the 10.4.2 update. You can run it from a Terminal window; however, the resulting backup is not bootable. The developer’s web site does indicate that an update for Tiger is in the works, but it’s not soup yet. One of the major advantages to Carbon Copy Cloner (in addition to making reliable, bootable backups) was that it also was free.
Another free alternative that has been updated for Tiger is LaCie Silverkeeper 1.1.3. The price is right (free). The backup does appear to be complete. And your Mac will boot from the backup drive. However, when we booted from the backup drive after completing the backup, we got the standard Apple Welcome screen as if you had just installed Tiger on your system. This forces you to reconfigure your language preferences, your network, and walk through the remainder of the setup process before you can access your drive. Again, this may be perfectly acceptable to some. It wasn’t what we were looking for. But the price is right, and it might be adequate to tide you over until a Carbon Copy Cloner update is released.
A free option in which the backup is actually bootable is Apple’s own Disk Utility which is included with Mac OS X. To make a bootable backup copy of your local hard disk, insert the Tiger DVD, plug in an external firewire drive, and reboot your Mac while holding down the "C" key. Select your language. Then from the menu bar choose Utilities->Disk Utility. Click on your internal hard disk from the drive list. Click the Restore tab. Now drag your internal disk drive to Source and drag your external drive to Destination. If you want to checksum your backup, read the screen instructions. Otherwise, check Erase Destination and then click the Restore button. Click OK to erase your backup drive. Once the backup completes, test your backup by rebooting your system while holding down the Option key. Choose the backup disk (far right) as your boot device. Be patient! It takes about a minute after your Mac reboots until you can make a drive choice. Once you select the backup drive, click the right arrow key, and you’re off to the races. The only drawback to this option is having to boot your Mac from the Tiger DVD disk to make a bootable backup. Otherwise, it works like a champ … and it’s free.
A fourth option is to download and then run psync from a Terminal window with the following command: sudo psync -d / /Volumes/Backup/ where Backup is the name of your backup volume. The backup appears to be complete; however, you cannot boot from the external drive following completion of the backup. So this option suffers from the same drawback as the Carbon Copy Cloner solution. One advantage of psync is that it can easily be added as a cron job which will kick off automatically at times you specify. See our article on crontab and CronniX for further details on how to implement this if you are interested in this approach.
Another personal favorite is D√ɬ©j√ɬ† Vu from Propaganda Productions. It works as a Preference Pane within System Preferences and does exactly what Carbon Copy Cloner used to do. Unfortunately, it’s not free unless you happen to own Toast 6 Titanium. If you do own Toast 6 Titanium, you can get the Tiger-compatible version of D√ɬ©j√ɬ† Vu by upgrading to Toast Titanium 6.1. Unfortunately, the Hobson’s Choice is that upgrading to version 6.1 eliminates your ability to burn music CDs using songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, a nasty gotcha that we previously have written about. Fortunately, for $9.95 you can upgrade D√ɬ©j√ɬ† Vu only from Propaganda’s web site. If you don’t own Toast 6 Titanium, you still can buy D√ɬ©j√ɬ† Vu. It’s $24.95 for a single-user license and a very reasonable $34.95 for a household license which authorizes installation on an unlimited number of Macs in your single household. Or you can use it for 30 days at no cost. Perhaps by then the Carbon Copy Cloner update will be available.
Finally, our readers’ comments pointed us to another terrific shareware product, SuperDuper. And it really is. It has two modes: registered (for $19.95) and unregistered. The unregistered version which is free for downloading makes a perfect duplicate of your system disk to an external firewire drive which is bootable. That is exactly what we set out to do with our backup reviews in this tutorial, and it couldn’t get much simpler. You choose your internal drive as the source from the left pull-down menu and choose your firewire external drive as the target from right pull-down. Leave the default script and click the Start Copying button. Making a perfect clone of an iMac G5 with 20 gigs of data took roughly an hour. Then you can boot from the external drive to make sure everything went according to plan. It doesn’t get much easier than that, and you sure can’t beat the price.
ISP-In-A-Box: The $500 Mac mini (WebDAV and Web Folders 101)
Microsoft deserves a lot of credit for popularizing the idea of Web Folders, but the open source movement gets the accolades for making WebDAV work reliably across all the computing platforms. If you didn't already know, WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. Simply put, it is an HTTP protocol extension that allows people anywhere on the Internet to collaboratively edit and manage documents and other files using the same protocol and port used for surfing the web. In the Mac world, WebDAV provides a Disk Volume on your Desktop that "looks and feels" like any other networked hard disk. In the Windows world, WebDAV provides a Web Folder which can be used like any other mapped drive in Network Neighborhood. If you're still a little fuzzy about the WebDAV concept, think of how you link to another drive on your local area network. WebDAV gives you the same functionality across the entire Internet with virtually the same ease of use. Depending upon user privileges, of course, you can copy files to and from a WebDAV volume, and the protocol imposes versioning control through file locking to assure that multiple people don't change the same file at the same time. Panther and Tiger versions of Mac OS X provide both a WebDAV client and server, and today we'll walk you through configuring and using both the client and the server on your Mac. Because of the number of folks that also use Windows machines at the office, we'll also briefly touch upon how to access your Mac WebDAV resources and set up a Web Folder from a Windows XP machine.
HOW-TO Use the WebDAV Client on the Mac. We're going to start by walking through the set up process for connecting to a WebDAV server resource anywhere on the Internet. To connect to a WebDAV resource from a Mac, press Command-K from Finder. Then enter a Server Address in the following format: http://192.168.0.103/dav/. This tells Finder to use the HTTP protocol to establish a link to an IP address and folder that you designate. You also can use a fully-qualified domain name in lieu of an IP address. Typically, you'll be prompted for a username and password, and then a new volume will appear on your Desktop which can be used just like your local hard disk. When you finish using the resource, CTRL-Click on the volume and Eject it. It's that simple.
HOW-TO Use Web Folders on a Windows PC. The Windows process is a bit different as you might expect, but the results are the same. Once connected, you'll have a mapped drive that can be used just like any other network drive. The simplest way is to map a drive (see inset). To access Web Folders and save your settings, we're going to use the Add Network Place Wizard. You can access it in several ways. Either Right-Click on Network Neighborhood and choose Map Drive. Or from My Network Places, choose Add a network place. Or from Windows Explorer, choose Tools->Map Network Drive. Now click "Sign up for online storage or connect to a network server" at the bottom of the window.
When the Add Network Place Wizard appears, you'll be prompted for where to create the network place. Select "Choose another network location" and click Next. For the Internet address, use the same syntax as on the Mac: http://192.168.0.103/dav/ and click Next. Give your network place a name and click Next then Finish. Your new Web Folder will now appear in My Network Places. Just click on it to connect. Here's the gotcha with WebDAV on the Windows platform. If you access a Web Folder by IP address, when you're prompted for a username and password to log in, the username must be in email format: john@doe.org. Another "Better Idea" from our friends at Micro$oft. So when you create usernames on your Mac, keep this in mind if you want Windows users to be able to access the resources reliably. It doesn't matter what the email username or domain is, but it has to be in email format. When you finish using a web folder, be sure to disconnect. Open Windows Explorer, choose Tools->Disconnect Network Drive, and select the Web Folder you wish to disconnect.
Connecting to a WebDAV Resource. We've temporarily set up a sample WebDAV server on one of our Tiger-enhanced Macs so that you can experiment with WebDAV access from your favorite Mac, Linux, or Windows machine. For reasons which should be obvious, we've disabled writing to our WebDAV server only because we didn't want our hard disk filled up by some anonymous bozo in the middle of the night. We're also going to provide a single username and password for everyone to use. It should be stressed that neither of these scenarios is typical. First, the usual purpose of a WebDAV server is to facilitate collaboration which means all authorized users should be able to read and write to the volume. Second, you usually don't provide access to a WebDAV server for anonymous users. That's what web sites are for. But this is Wiki World, and we wanted to show you how these things are put together before you roll your own. So bear with the constraints recognizing that, when you set up your own WebDAV server, it will be much more robust.
To access the system, follow one of the client access methods outlined above. The web address using Windows is http://webify.us. For Macs, use http://dav.webify.us:82. When prompted for a username and password, use bozo for the username and forlife as the password. If you have problems with the username on a Windows PC, use bozo@webify.us. Don't forget to disconnect when you are finished playing. NOTE: This system (only) will be down for a move to its new permanent location from Thursday afternoon, May 26 until Saturday morning, May 28. Our apologies.
That about covers using a WebDAV client. For step-by-step instructions on creating your own WebDAV server on your Mac, here's a reprint of the article from our former Tiger Vittles site.
ISP-In-A-Box: Building a WebDAV Server for Remote Access
Ever wished you had several gigs of off-site disk storage so you could safely back up all your most important data and use it for remote access or collaboration. One option, of course, is a .Mac account which gives you 125MB of iDisk storage space and other goodies for $99 a year. You can increase your iDisk to a gigabyte for an additional $49.95 a year, a bargain compared to some commercial sites. Here’s another approach that’ll save you hundreds of dollars a year. Find a friend with a Mac and an Internet connection and swap several gigs of storage space on your friend’s Mac for several gigs of storage space on yours. Then follow along here, and we’ll show both of you how to build and use WebDAV servers to do exactly what the commercial firms are doing. And you can use the Apache software that’s already installed with Mac OS X Tiger.
As you now know, WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. Simply put, it is an HTTP protocol extension that allows people anywhere on the Internet to collaboratively edit and manage documents and other files using the same protocol and port used for surfing the web. In the Mac world, WebDAV provides a Disk Volume on your Desktop that “looks and feels” like any other networked hard disk. In the Windows world, WebDAV is called Web Folders. They can be used like any other mapped drive in Network Neighborhood. If you’re still a little fuzzy about the WebDAV concept, think of how you link to another drive on your local area network. WebDAV gives you the same functionality across the entire Internet with virtually the same ease of use. Depending upon user privileges, of course, you can copy files to and from a WebDAV volume, and the protocol imposes versioning control through file locking to assure that multiple people don’t change the same file at the same time. Panther and Tiger versions of Mac OS X provide both a WebDAV client and server. Nerd Vittles walked you through configuring and using the WebDAV clients. So let’s tackle the WebDAV server setup now. This works with Tiger or Panther by the way.
In a nutshell, the WebDAV server setup goes like this. We’ll create a new subdirectory in the web server’s storage folder which we’ll use for WebDAV read and write access. Then we’ll set up a username and password system to support WebDAV access. Next we’ll activate the WebDAV mods in Apache which already are installed on your Mac. We’ll then reconfigure Apache a bit to support WebDAV formatting. And finally we’ll restart our web server and presto, WebDAV. You don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to do this, but you do have to get your hands dirty with a command-line editor, Pico. If you’ve followed other Nerd Vittles tutorials, then this one will be a breeze. Just be sure you edit carefully and, if something does go wrong, copy your backup Apache config file back over the edited one and try again. Apache errors don’t get reported in System Preferences->Sharing when you activate your personal web server. If you have problems and want to see what’s going on, activate and then run WebMin (which we previously covered at Nerd Vittles and upgraded here last week for Tiger). Using your browser, access WebMin and choose Servers->Apache Webserver. Then start and stop the web server from there. Errors will be reported with the line number in the config file that’s causing the problem. Ctrl-C in Pico will tell you what line number you’re on in the config file. If this sounds like I’ve had recent experience, you’d be correct. But you won’t have to pull your hair out. I’ve already done that with mine.
Creating a WebDAV Folder. Open a Terminal window, and switch to root access: sudo su. Then navigate to the root of your web server folders: cd /Library/WebServer/Documents. Create a new WebDAV folder: mkdir dav. Change the permissions of the folder’s group to match the Apache group: chgrp -R www dav. If you want to provide write access to users who connect to your WebDAV folder, then change the permissions to allow it: chmod 775 dav.Building a Password File. We already built a password file in the Web Sites 101 tutorial on Nerd Vittles. We used that password file to manage web site access to various web directories. You probably don’t want to use the same password file for WebDAV unless you are building this just for yourself. The only trick to password files is you want to put the file where Apache can read it but your web visitors cannot. And you want to be careful not to insert blank lines in the file with just a colon. That basically lets everyone in. The format for the file is username:password, each on a separate line. And the passwords are encrypted. Here’s how to do it.
Open a Terminal window and switch to root access: sudo su. Now move to the directory where we’ll put the password file: cd /usr/local. We’re going to name this password file dav.pw so we can remember what it’s for. To create the file and erase any existing file without warning type: htpasswd -c dav.pw admin. Think up a password you can remember, and you’ll be prompted to type it twice. Now let’s verify that the file was created: cat dav.pw. You should see the word admin, then a colon, and then your encrypted password. To add additional users to the file, just type: htpasswd -m dav.pw username where username is your next user. You’ll be prompted for the password. Remember, if you accidentally use the htpasswd -c syntax a second time, you will overwrite your existing file and all of its entries. So be careful. Finally, remember to make duplicate entries using full email syntax for the username to assure that Windows users can access your DAV resources: htpasswd -m dav.pw joe@schmo.com.
Reconfiguring Apache to Support WebDAV. Open a Terminal window, and switch to root access: sudo su. Then navigate to the folder with Apache’s configuration file: cd /etc/httpd. First, let’s make a backup copy of the config file in case something goes wrong: cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.dav.save. Now let’s carefully edit the config file: pico httpd.conf. Uncomment the headers_module line by searching for headers (Ctrl-W, headers, enter) and then pressing Ctrl-D while positioned over the # sign at the beginning of the line. Now search for mod_headers (Ctrl-W, mod_headers, enter) and uncomment that line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now search for dav_module (Ctrl-W, dav_module, enter) and uncomment the line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now search for mod_dav (Ctrl-W, mod_dav, enter) and uncomment the line (Ctrl-D while positioned over beginning # sign). Now press Ctrl-V repeatedly until you get to the bottom of the file. Switch to your web browser and download this WebDav snippet. When the code snippet displays in your web browser, press Command-A then Command-C to copy all of the code to your clipboard. Then switch back to Pico, click at the bottom of the config file, and paste the code snippet into the config file by pressing Command-V. Use the down arrow to move to the BrowserMatch section of the code we just pasted and be sure “redirect-carefully” didn’t end up on a line by itself. If it did, position the cursor over the first letter “r” and press the backspace key to move it back up to the end of the previous line of code. Don’t worry if a dollar sign displays at the end of the line after you move it. This just indicates that additional text is off the screen… the price we pay for using a free editor. Now we should be all set. Save the config file: Ctrl-X, Y, enter. And restart Apache by deselecting and then reselecting Personal Web Sharing from System Preferences->Sharing. Close the Terminal window by typing exit, pressing enter, and then pressing Command-Q.Testing Your WebDAV Server. To test whether WebDAV is working, switch to your Desktop and, using Finder, press Command-K. When prompted for the server address, type http://localhost/dav and then click the Connect button. Enter your username and password that you created in the dav.pw password file, and a blank dav folder should appear on your Desktop. Drag a file from your Desktop to the folder to be sure everything is working as it should. If you’ve enabled web access through your Mac and router firewalls (which we have previously covered here), then you should be able to access your WebDAV folder from the Internet with your IP address or domain name using the syntax: http://mydomain.com/dav. Enjoy your new WebDAV server. Now all you need is a friend to share it with.
iTunes Bait and Switch: Say It Ain’t So, Steve
After selling over 400 million songs through the iTunes Music Store, Apple reportedly has pulled a fast one. The Bait: Remember the original iTunes promise? Songs purchased on iTunes could be copied to an unlimited number of iPods that you own and could be played on up to five Macs or PCs. And you could burn playlists to music CDs up to seven times. And you could burn individual songs to music CDs an unlimited number of times. Well, that was then and this is now according to a little blurb on VersionTracker this week. In announcing the latest release of Roxio’s award-winning CD and DVD burning software, Toast Titanium 6.1, which was supposed to fix some compatibility issues with Tiger, a not-so-subtle gotcha has been added. The Switch: "Following discussions with Apple, this version will no longer allow customers to create audio CDs, audio DVDs, or export audio to their hard drive using purchased iTunes music store content."
If true, Apple’s welching on the terms of their music license with end-users by strong-arming software developers into crippling their CD burning software may just earn them one of the biggest class-action lawsuits of the century … to the tune of 400 million already-purchased songs. Does Apple have the right to change the terms of their music license for future sales from iTunes? I suppose so. Do they have the right to change the rules for songs people have already purchased? Any first-year law student could answer that as could most folks with about an ounce of common sense. But you can still burn a CD using iTunes, you might be saying. And I would respond, "Yeah. This week." How many times in the past year has Apple made changes to iTunes that further restrict your use of music you lawfully purchased? Making iTunes the exclusive software for burning music CDs of music purchased from the iTunes Music Store will work just about as well as letting the Arab nations unilaterally set the price of oil. What’s coming next: music CDs that will only play on Apple CD players. Give us a break! Maybe it’s time for folks to take a look at allofmp3.com after all. It’s only 95¢ a song cheaper than iTunes. But we were all trying to be good citizens, except Apple apparently. If Apple can continually change the ground rules after the fact, then it’s hard to fault those who resort to tools such as PyMusique to protect their music investment.
The fundamental difference in what Roxio apparently was doing to reverse engineer the Apple encryption scheme and what Real appears to be doing is quite simple. People have always had a contractual right to copy their encrypted songs to music CDs. So, just as printer manufacturers have no right to assert the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to bar competitors from making compatible print cartridges, Apple has no legitimate DMCA claim to bar other companies from providing tools to perform the lawful act of making music CDs from iTunes downloaded songs. If Apple was only worried about their encryption scheme with no ulterior motives, then it would have been a simple matter to license a decryption library to Roxio for the limited purpose of making music CDs from iTunes downloaded music. That obviously didn’t happen.
It’s too bad that Apple, which has been embraced by the public as the model technology company in this country, just can’t seem to resist the temptation to jump into the legal thicket and shoot itself in the proverbial foot. Worse yet, it always seems to happen when Apple is on a roll. Makes you wonder what would happen if Apple really were in the desktop computing driver’s seat, doesn’t it? Once word spreads that Apple is beginning a process of further crippling music downloads by changing the original terms of their deal with the public, then, read my lips, the iTunes lock on music downloads is going to be history. So, Steve. Say it ain’t so. You’ve inspired a new generation of kids to actually buy their music. Don’t make them all sorry they trusted you.
About the Author. Ward Mundy is a retired attorney who spent more than 30 years providing legal and technology assistance to the federal courts in the United States. Nothing in this article should be construed as legal advice, and obviously the views expressed herein are solely those of the author.
ISP-In-A-Box: The $500 Mac mini (Upgrading to Tiger = No-Brainer)
It’s been a week since Tiger was released, and we finally got our copy even though it was several days late. Apple more than compensated for the delay by offering up a free copy of iWork or iLife. Class act, that Apple. Our project for today is to upgrade your Mac mini to Tiger. Then we’ll send you over to Tiger Vittles to upgrade the Top 10 ISP-In-A-Box projects that we built earlier this year so that they all work again. Sounds like a whole weekend project, doesn’t it? Think again. Believe it or not, it took a little more than an hour to upgrade Panther to Tiger and about one more hour to get all ten of the following applications working. If you’re from the Windows World or have any familiarity with any server platform other than Macs, you know just how incredible that is. If not, just count your blessings, twice. Tiger is a must-have upgrade. And, if you happen to have two to five Macs in your household, it’s just about the best deal on the planet. Imagine Exxon selling you gasoline for 50¢ a gallon just because you own five automobiles.
Prerequisites. For purposes of this article, we’re assuming your Mac mini came with Panther preinstalled or that you’re upgrading another Mac that already has Panther installed. You also should have installed whichever applications above that you want to use while still running Panther. Stated another way, this tutorial won’t necessarily help you if you install Tiger and then attempt to install some of the applications above. We haven’t tested new installs on Tiger yet. So, if there are some applications you want that you haven’t installed, click on the appropriate links above, and do the installs before upgrading to Tiger. You also should make certain that any of the applications you need already work under Panther. Don’t upgrade to Tiger until they do. Finally, you’ll need $9.95 if you want to enable any or all of the email servers using PostFix Enabler for Tiger. Hint: You only really need the SMTP mail server if you’re planning to use the Email Reminders or the WordPress blog.
Upgrading from Panther to Tiger. The first thing you need to do before you begin the upgrade is to read HOW-TO: Prep Your Mac for a Tiger Upgrade on our Tiger Vittles site. Then you need to review the software compatibility lists on our Tiger Vittles site: Tiger-Ready Applications: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. If there is some application you absolutely have to have and it’s on our Bad or Ugly lists, then you probably will want to hold off on upgrading for a while. If you need VPN software to connect to your office, that’s probably a deal-breaker. Virtually all of the VPN clients are broken with Tiger at the moment.
In a nutshell, the upgrade process we used went like this. We obviously can’t guarantee that it will work for you because we don’t know what is on your system or what condition your system is in. So proceed at your own risk and call Apple if you run into problems. They get money for this. We don’t.
Go have a snack while your Mac is indexing. Then meet us over at Tiger Vittles today to upgrade the first ten ISP-In-A-Box server applications to work with Tiger. And, while you’re there, check out how your other favorite applications are doing with Tiger.
Nerd Reminder: Don’t forget to call your mama this weekend. Flowers would be a nice touch.
Free Asterisk Solutions
