[RFC Home] [TEXT|PDF|HTML] [Tracker] [IPR] [Errata] [Info page]

Obsoleted by: 4918 PROPOSED STANDARD
Errata Exist
Network Working Group                                        Y. Goland
Request for Comments: 2518                                   Microsoft
Category: Standards Track                                 E. Whitehead
                                                             UC Irvine
                                                              A. Faizi
                                                              Netscape
                                                             S. Carter
                                                                Novell
                                                             D. Jensen
                                                                Novell
                                                         February 1999


          HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring -- WEBDAV

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document specifies a set of methods, headers, and content-types
   ancillary to HTTP/1.1 for the management of resource properties,
   creation and management of resource collections, namespace
   manipulation, and resource locking (collision avoidance).

Table of Contents

   ABSTRACT............................................................1
   1 INTRODUCTION .....................................................5
   2 NOTATIONAL CONVENTIONS ...........................................7
   3 TERMINOLOGY ......................................................7
   4 DATA MODEL FOR RESOURCE PROPERTIES ...............................8
   4.1  The Resource Property Model ...................................8
   4.2  Existing Metadata Proposals ...................................8
   4.3  Properties and HTTP Headers ...................................9
   4.4  Property Values ...............................................9
   4.5  Property Names ...............................................10
   4.6  Media Independent Links ......................................10
   5 COLLECTIONS OF WEB RESOURCES ....................................11



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 1]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   5.1  HTTP URL Namespace Model .....................................11
   5.2  Collection Resources .........................................11
   5.3  Creation and Retrieval of Collection Resources ...............12
   5.4  Source Resources and Output Resources ........................13
   6 LOCKING .........................................................14
   6.1  Exclusive Vs. Shared Locks ...................................14
   6.2  Required Support .............................................16
   6.3  Lock Tokens ..................................................16
   6.4  opaquelocktoken Lock Token URI Scheme ........................16
    6.4.1  Node Field Generation Without the IEEE 802 Address ........17
   6.5  Lock Capability Discovery ....................................19
   6.6  Active Lock Discovery ........................................19
   6.7  Usage Considerations .........................................19
   7 WRITE LOCK ......................................................20
   7.1  Methods Restricted by Write Locks ............................20
   7.2  Write Locks and Lock Tokens ..................................20
   7.3  Write Locks and Properties ...................................20
   7.4  Write Locks and Null Resources ...............................21
   7.5  Write Locks and Collections ..................................21
   7.6  Write Locks and the If Request Header ........................22
    7.6.1  Example - Write Lock ......................................22
   7.7  Write Locks and COPY/MOVE ....................................23
   7.8  Refreshing Write Locks .......................................23
   8 HTTP METHODS FOR DISTRIBUTED AUTHORING ..........................23
   8.1  PROPFIND .....................................................24
    8.1.1  Example - Retrieving Named Properties .....................25
    8.1.2  Example - Using allprop to Retrieve All Properties ........26
    8.1.3  Example - Using propname to Retrieve all Property Names ...29
   8.2  PROPPATCH ....................................................31
    8.2.1  Status Codes for use with 207 (Multi-Status) ..............31
    8.2.2  Example - PROPPATCH .......................................32
   8.3  MKCOL Method .................................................33
    8.3.1  Request ...................................................33
    8.3.2  Status Codes ..............................................33
    8.3.3  Example - MKCOL ...........................................34
   8.4  GET, HEAD for Collections ....................................34
   8.5  POST for Collections .........................................35
   8.6  DELETE .......................................................35
    8.6.1  DELETE for Non-Collection Resources .......................35
    8.6.2  DELETE for Collections ....................................36
   8.7  PUT ..........................................................36
    8.7.1  PUT for Non-Collection Resources ..........................36
    8.7.2  PUT for Collections .......................................37
   8.8  COPY Method ..................................................37
    8.8.1  COPY for HTTP/1.1 resources ...............................37
    8.8.2  COPY for Properties .......................................38
    8.8.3  COPY for Collections ......................................38
    8.8.4  COPY and the Overwrite Header .............................39



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 2]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


    8.8.5  Status Codes ..............................................39
    8.8.6  Example - COPY with Overwrite .............................40
    8.8.7  Example - COPY with No Overwrite ..........................40
    8.8.8  Example - COPY of a Collection ............................41
   8.9  MOVE Method ..................................................42
    8.9.1  MOVE for Properties .......................................42
    8.9.2  MOVE for Collections ......................................42
    8.9.3  MOVE and the Overwrite Header .............................43
    8.9.4  Status Codes ..............................................43
    8.9.5  Example - MOVE of a Non-Collection ........................44
    8.9.6  Example - MOVE of a Collection ............................44
   8.10 LOCK Method ..................................................45
    8.10.1 Operation .................................................46
    8.10.2 The Effect of Locks on Properties and Collections .........46
    8.10.3 Locking Replicated Resources ..............................46
    8.10.4 Depth and Locking .........................................46
    8.10.5 Interaction with other Methods ............................47
    8.10.6 Lock Compatibility Table ..................................47
    8.10.7 Status Codes ..............................................48
    8.10.8 Example - Simple Lock Request .............................48
    8.10.9 Example - Refreshing a Write Lock .........................49
    8.10.10 Example - Multi-Resource Lock Request ....................50
   8.11 UNLOCK Method ................................................51
    8.11.1 Example - UNLOCK ..........................................52
   9 HTTP HEADERS FOR DISTRIBUTED AUTHORING ..........................52
   9.1  DAV Header ...................................................52
   9.2  Depth Header .................................................52
   9.3  Destination Header ...........................................54
   9.4  If Header ....................................................54
    9.4.1  No-tag-list Production ....................................55
    9.4.2  Tagged-list Production ....................................55
    9.4.3  not Production ............................................56
    9.4.4  Matching Function .........................................56
    9.4.5  If Header and Non-DAV Compliant Proxies ...................57
   9.5  Lock-Token Header ............................................57
   9.6  Overwrite Header .............................................57
   9.7  Status-URI Response Header ...................................57
   9.8  Timeout Request Header .......................................58
   10  STATUS CODE EXTENSIONS TO HTTP/1.1 ............................59
   10.1 102 Processing ...............................................59
   10.2 207 Multi-Status .............................................59
   10.3 422 Unprocessable Entity .....................................60
   10.4 423 Locked ...................................................60
   10.5 424 Failed Dependency ........................................60
   10.6 507 Insufficient Storage .....................................60
   11  MULTI-STATUS RESPONSE .........................................60
   12  XML ELEMENT DEFINITIONS .......................................61
   12.1 activelock XML Element .......................................61



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 3]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


    12.1.1 depth XML Element .........................................61
    12.1.2 locktoken XML Element .....................................61
    12.1.3 timeout XML Element .......................................61
   12.2 collection XML Element .......................................62
   12.3 href XML Element .............................................62
   12.4 link XML Element .............................................62
    12.4.1 dst XML Element ...........................................62
    12.4.2 src XML Element ...........................................62
   12.5 lockentry XML Element ........................................63
   12.6 lockinfo XML Element .........................................63
   12.7 lockscope XML Element ........................................63
    12.7.1 exclusive XML Element .....................................63
    12.7.2 shared XML Element ........................................63
   12.8 locktype XML Element .........................................64
    12.8.1 write XML Element .........................................64
   12.9 multistatus XML Element ......................................64
    12.9.1 response XML Element ......................................64
    12.9.2 responsedescription XML Element ...........................65
   12.10 owner XML Element ...........................................65
   12.11 prop XML element ............................................66
   12.12 propertybehavior XML element ................................66
    12.12.1 keepalive XML element ....................................66
    12.12.2 omit XML element .........................................67
   12.13 propertyupdate XML element ..................................67
    12.13.1 remove XML element .......................................67
    12.13.2 set XML element ..........................................67
   12.14 propfind XML Element ........................................68
    12.14.1 allprop XML Element ......................................68
    12.14.2 propname XML Element .....................................68
   13  DAV PROPERTIES ................................................68
   13.1 creationdate Property ........................................69
   13.2 displayname Property .........................................69
   13.3 getcontentlanguage Property ..................................69
   13.4 getcontentlength Property ....................................69
   13.5 getcontenttype Property ......................................70
   13.6 getetag Property .............................................70
   13.7 getlastmodified Property .....................................70
   13.8 lockdiscovery Property .......................................71
    13.8.1 Example - Retrieving the lockdiscovery Property ...........71
   13.9 resourcetype Property ........................................72
   13.10 source Property .............................................72
    13.10.1 Example - A source Property ..............................72
   13.11 supportedlock Property ......................................73
    13.11.1 Example - Retrieving the supportedlock Property ..........73
   14  INSTRUCTIONS FOR PROCESSING XML IN DAV ........................74
   15  DAV COMPLIANCE CLASSES ........................................75
   15.1 Class 1 ......................................................75
   15.2 Class 2 ......................................................75



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 4]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   16  INTERNATIONALIZATION CONSIDERATIONS ...........................76
   17  SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS .......................................77
   17.1 Authentication of Clients ....................................77
   17.2 Denial of Service ............................................78
   17.3 Security through Obscurity ...................................78
   17.4 Privacy Issues Connected to Locks ............................78
   17.5 Privacy Issues Connected to Properties .......................79
   17.6 Reduction of Security due to Source Link .....................79
   17.7 Implications of XML External Entities ........................79
   17.8 Risks Connected with Lock Tokens .............................80
   18  IANA CONSIDERATIONS ...........................................80
   19  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY .........................................81
   20  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................82
   21  REFERENCES ....................................................82
   21.1 Normative References .........................................82
   21.2 Informational References .....................................83
   22  AUTHORS' ADDRESSES ............................................84
   23  APPENDICES ....................................................86
   23.1 Appendix 1 - WebDAV Document Type Definition .................86
   23.2 Appendix 2 - ISO 8601 Date and Time Profile ..................88
   23.3 Appendix 3 - Notes on Processing XML Elements ................89
    23.3.1 Notes on Empty XML Elements ...............................89
    23.3.2 Notes on Illegal XML Processing ...........................89
   23.4 Appendix 4 -- XML Namespaces for WebDAV ......................92
    23.4.1 Introduction ..............................................92
    23.4.2 Meaning of Qualified Names ................................92
   24  FULL COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ......................................94



1  Introduction

   This document describes an extension to the HTTP/1.1 protocol that
   allows clients to perform remote web content authoring operations.
   This extension provides a coherent set of methods, headers, request
   entity body formats, and response entity body formats that provide
   operations for:

   Properties: The ability to create, remove, and query information
   about Web pages, such as their authors, creation dates, etc. Also,
   the ability to link pages of any media type to related pages.

   Collections: The ability to create sets of documents and to retrieve
   a hierarchical membership listing (like a directory listing in a file
   system).






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 5]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Locking: The ability to keep more than one person from working on a
   document at the same time. This prevents the "lost update problem,"
   in which modifications are lost as first one author then another
   writes changes without merging the other author's changes.

   Namespace Operations: The ability to instruct the server to copy and
   move Web resources.

   Requirements and rationale for these operations are described in a
   companion document, "Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and
   Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web" [RFC2291].

   The sections below provide a detailed introduction to resource
   properties (section 4), collections of resources (section 5), and
   locking operations (section 6).  These sections introduce the
   abstractions manipulated by the WebDAV-specific HTTP methods
   described in section 8, "HTTP Methods for Distributed Authoring".

   In HTTP/1.1, method parameter information was exclusively encoded in
   HTTP headers. Unlike HTTP/1.1, WebDAV encodes method parameter
   information either in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) [REC-XML]
   request entity body, or in an HTTP header.  The use of XML to encode
   method parameters was motivated by the ability to add extra XML
   elements to existing structures, providing extensibility; and by
   XML's ability to encode information in ISO 10646 character sets,
   providing internationalization support. As a rule of thumb,
   parameters are encoded in XML entity bodies when they have unbounded
   length, or when they may be shown to a human user and hence require
   encoding in an ISO 10646 character set.  Otherwise, parameters are
   encoded within HTTP headers.  Section 9 describes the new HTTP
   headers used with WebDAV methods.

   In addition to encoding method parameters, XML is used in WebDAV to
   encode the responses from methods, providing the extensibility and
   internationalization advantages of XML for method output, as well as
   input.

   XML elements used in this specification are defined in section 12.

   The XML namespace extension (Appendix 4) is also used in this
   specification in order to allow for new XML elements to be added
   without fear of colliding with other element names.

   While the status codes provided by HTTP/1.1 are sufficient to
   describe most error conditions encountered by WebDAV methods, there
   are some errors that do not fall neatly into the existing categories.
   New status codes developed for the WebDAV methods are defined in
   section 10.  Since some WebDAV methods may operate over many



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 6]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   resources, the Multi-Status response has been introduced to return
   status information for multiple resources.  The Multi-Status response
   is described in section 11.

   WebDAV employs the property mechanism to store information about the
   current state of the resource.  For example, when a lock is taken out
   on a resource, a lock information property describes the current
   state of the lock. Section 13 defines the properties used within the
   WebDAV specification.

   Finishing off the specification are sections on what it means to be
   compliant with this specification (section 15), on
   internationalization support (section 16), and on security (section
   17).

2  Notational Conventions

   Since this document describes a set of extensions to the HTTP/1.1
   protocol, the augmented BNF used herein to describe protocol elements
   is exactly the same as described in section 2.1 of [RFC2068].  Since
   this augmented BNF uses the basic production rules provided in
   section 2.2 of [RFC2068], these rules apply to this document as well.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

3  Terminology

   URI/URL - A Uniform Resource Identifier and Uniform Resource Locator,
   respectively. These terms (and the distinction between them) are
   defined in [RFC2396].

   Collection - A resource that contains a set of URIs, termed member
   URIs, which identify member resources and meets the requirements in
   section 5 of this specification.

   Member URI - A URI which is a member of the set of URIs contained by
   a collection.

   Internal Member URI - A Member URI that is immediately relative to
   the URI of the collection (the definition of immediately relative is
   given in section 5.2).

   Property - A name/value pair that contains descriptive information
   about a resource.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 7]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Live Property - A property whose semantics and syntax are enforced by
   the server.  For example, the live "getcontentlength" property has
   its value, the length of the entity returned by a GET request,
   automatically calculated by the server.

   Dead Property - A property whose semantics and syntax are not
   enforced by the server.  The server only records the value of a dead
   property; the client is responsible for maintaining the consistency
   of the syntax and semantics of a dead property.

   Null Resource - A resource which responds with a 404 (Not Found) to
   any HTTP/1.1 or DAV method except for PUT, MKCOL, OPTIONS and LOCK.
   A NULL resource MUST NOT appear as a member of its parent collection.

4  Data Model for Resource Properties

4.1 The Resource Property Model

   Properties are pieces of data that describe the state of a resource.
   Properties are data about data.

   Properties are used in distributed authoring environments to provide
   for efficient discovery and management of resources.  For example, a
   'subject' property might allow for the indexing of all resources by
   their subject, and an 'author' property might allow for the discovery
   of what authors have written which documents.

   The DAV property model consists of name/value pairs.  The name of a
   property identifies the property's syntax and semantics, and provides
   an address by which to refer to its syntax and semantics.

   There are two categories of properties: "live" and "dead".  A live
   property has its syntax and semantics enforced by the server. Live
   properties include cases where a) the value of a property is read-
   only, maintained by the server, and b) the value of the property is
   maintained by the client, but the server performs syntax checking on
   submitted values. All instances of a given live property MUST comply
   with the definition associated with that property name.  A dead
   property has its syntax and semantics enforced by the client; the
   server merely records the value of the property verbatim.

4.2 Existing Metadata Proposals

   Properties have long played an essential role in the maintenance of
   large document repositories, and many current proposals contain some
   notion of a property, or discuss web metadata more generally.  These
   include PICS [REC-PICS], PICS-NG, XML, Web Collections, and several
   proposals on representing relationships within HTML. Work on PICS-NG



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 8]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   and Web Collections has been subsumed by the Resource Description
   Framework (RDF) metadata activity of the World Wide Web Consortium.
   RDF consists of a network-based data model and an XML representation
   of that model.

   Some proposals come from a digital library perspective.  These
   include the Dublin Core [RFC2413] metadata set and the Warwick
   Framework [WF], a container architecture for different metadata
   schemas.  The literature includes many examples of metadata,
   including MARC [USMARC], a bibliographic metadata format, and a
   technical report bibliographic format employed by the Dienst system
   [RFC1807]. Additionally, the proceedings from the first IEEE Metadata
   conference describe many community-specific metadata sets.

   Participants of the 1996 Metadata II Workshop in Warwick, UK [WF],
   noted that "new metadata sets will develop as the networked
   infrastructure matures" and "different communities will propose,
   design, and be responsible for different types of metadata." These
   observations can be corroborated by noting that many community-
   specific sets of metadata already exist, and there is significant
   motivation for the development of new forms of metadata as many
   communities increasingly make their data available in digital form,
   requiring a metadata format to assist data location and cataloging.

4.3 Properties and HTTP Headers

   Properties already exist, in a limited sense, in HTTP message
   headers.  However, in distributed authoring environments a relatively
   large number of properties are needed to describe the state of a
   resource, and setting/returning them all through HTTP headers is
   inefficient.  Thus a mechanism is needed which allows a principal to
   identify a set of properties in which the principal is interested and
   to set or retrieve just those properties.

4.4 Property Values

   The value of a property when expressed in XML MUST be well formed.

   XML has been chosen because it is a flexible, self-describing,
   structured data format that supports rich schema definitions, and
   because of its support for multiple character sets.  XML's self-
   describing nature allows any property's value to be extended by
   adding new elements.  Older clients will not break when they
   encounter extensions because they will still have the data specified
   in the original schema and will ignore elements they do not
   understand.  XML's support for multiple character sets allows any
   human-readable property to be encoded and read in a character set
   familiar to the user.  XML's support for multiple human languages,



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                     [Page 9]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   using the "xml:lang" attribute, handles cases where the same
   character set is employed by multiple human languages.

4.5 Property Names

   A property name is a universally unique identifier that is associated
   with a schema that provides information about the syntax and
   semantics of the property.

   Because a property's name is universally unique, clients can depend
   upon consistent behavior for a particular property across multiple
   resources, on the same and across different servers, so long as that
   property is "live" on the resources in question, and the
   implementation of the live property is faithful to its definition.

   The XML namespace mechanism, which is based on URIs [RFC2396], is
   used to name properties because it prevents namespace collisions and
   provides for varying degrees of administrative control.

   The property namespace is flat; that is, no hierarchy of properties
   is explicitly recognized.  Thus, if a property A and a property A/B
   exist on a resource, there is no recognition of any relationship
   between the two properties.  It is expected that a separate
   specification will eventually be produced which will address issues
   relating to hierarchical properties.

   Finally, it is not possible to define the same property twice on a
   single resource, as this would cause a collision in the resource's
   property namespace.

4.6 Media Independent Links

   Although HTML resources support links to other resources, the Web
   needs more general support for links between resources of any media
   type (media types are also known as MIME types, or content types).
   WebDAV provides such links. A WebDAV link is a special type of
   property value, formally defined in section 12.4, that allows typed
   connections to be established between resources of any media type.
   The property value consists of source and destination Uniform
   Resource Identifiers (URIs); the property name identifies the link
   type.










Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 10]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


5  Collections of Web Resources

   This section provides a description of a new type of Web resource,
   the collection, and discusses its interactions with the HTTP URL
   namespace. The purpose of a collection resource is to model
   collection-like objects (e.g., file system directories) within a
   server's namespace.

   All DAV compliant resources MUST support the HTTP URL namespace model
   specified herein.

5.1 HTTP URL Namespace Model

   The HTTP URL namespace is a hierarchical namespace where the
   hierarchy is delimited with the "/" character.

   An HTTP URL namespace is said to be consistent if it meets the
   following conditions: for every URL in the HTTP hierarchy there
   exists a collection that contains that URL as an internal member.
   The root, or top-level collection of the namespace under
   consideration is exempt from the previous rule.

   Neither HTTP/1.1 nor WebDAV require that the entire HTTP URL
   namespace be consistent.  However, certain WebDAV methods are
   prohibited from producing results that cause namespace
   inconsistencies.

   Although implicit in [RFC2068] and [RFC2396], any resource, including
   collection resources, MAY be identified by more than one URI. For
   example, a resource could be identified by multiple HTTP URLs.

5.2 Collection Resources

   A collection is a resource whose state consists of at least a list of
   internal member URIs and a set of properties, but which may have
   additional state such as entity bodies returned by GET.  An internal
   member URI MUST be immediately relative to a base URI of the
   collection.  That is, the internal member URI is equal to a
   containing collection's URI plus an additional segment for non-
   collection resources, or additional segment plus trailing slash "/"
   for collection resources, where segment is defined in section 3.3 of
   [RFC2396].

   Any given internal member URI MUST only belong to the collection
   once, i.e., it is illegal to have multiple instances of the same URI
   in a collection.  Properties defined on collections behave exactly as
   do properties on non-collection resources.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 11]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   For all WebDAV compliant resources A and B, identified by URIs U and
   V, for which U is immediately relative to V, B MUST be a collection
   that has U as an internal member URI. So, if the resource with URL
   http://foo.com/bar/blah is WebDAV compliant and if the resource with
   URL http://foo.com/bar/ is WebDAV compliant then the resource with
   URL http://foo.com/bar/ must be a collection and must contain URL
   http://foo.com/bar/blah as an internal member.

   Collection resources MAY list the URLs of non-WebDAV compliant
   children in the HTTP URL namespace hierarchy as internal members but
   are not required to do so. For example, if the resource with URL
   http://foo.com/bar/blah is not WebDAV compliant and the URL
   http://foo.com/bar/ identifies a collection then URL
   http://foo.com/bar/blah may or may not be an internal member of the
   collection with URL http://foo.com/bar/.

   If a WebDAV compliant resource has no WebDAV compliant children in
   the HTTP URL namespace hierarchy then the WebDAV compliant resource
   is not required to be a collection.

   There is a standing convention that when a collection is referred to
   by its name without a trailing slash, the trailing slash is
   automatically appended.  Due to this, a resource may accept a URI
   without a trailing "/" to point to a collection. In this case it
   SHOULD return a content-location header in the response pointing to
   the URI ending with the "/".  For example, if a client invokes a
   method on http://foo.bar/blah (no trailing slash), the resource
   http://foo.bar/blah/ (trailing slash) may respond as if the operation
   were invoked on it, and should return a content-location header with
   http://foo.bar/blah/ in it.  In general clients SHOULD use the "/"
   form of collection names.

   A resource MAY be a collection but not be WebDAV compliant.  That is,
   the resource may comply with all the rules set out in this
   specification regarding how a collection is to behave without
   necessarily supporting all methods that a WebDAV compliant resource
   is required to support.  In such a case the resource may return the
   DAV:resourcetype property with the value DAV:collection but MUST NOT
   return a DAV header containing the value "1" on an OPTIONS response.

5.3 Creation and Retrieval of Collection Resources

   This document specifies the MKCOL method to create new collection
   resources, rather than using the existing HTTP/1.1 PUT or POST
   method, for the following reasons:






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 12]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   In HTTP/1.1, the PUT method is defined to store the request body at
   the location specified by the Request-URI.  While a description
   format for a collection can readily be constructed for use with PUT,
   the implications of sending such a description to the server are
   undesirable.  For example, if a description of a collection that
   omitted some existing resources were PUT to a server, this might be
   interpreted as a command to remove those members.  This would extend
   PUT to perform DELETE functionality, which is undesirable since it
   changes the semantics of PUT, and makes it difficult to control
   DELETE functionality with an access control scheme based on methods.

   While the POST method is sufficiently open-ended that a "create a
   collection" POST command could be constructed, this is undesirable
   because it would be difficult to separate access control for
   collection creation from other uses of POST.

   The exact definition of the behavior of GET and PUT on collections is
   defined later in this document.

5.4 Source Resources and Output Resources

   For many resources, the entity returned by a GET method exactly
   matches the persistent state of the resource, for example, a GIF file
   stored on a disk.  For this simple case, the URI at which a resource
   is accessed is identical to the URI at which the source (the
   persistent state) of the resource is accessed.  This is also the case
   for HTML source files that are not processed by the server prior to
   transmission.

   However, the server can sometimes process HTML resources before they
   are transmitted as a return entity body.  For example, a server-
   side-include directive within an HTML file might instruct a server to
   replace the directive with another value, such as the current date.
   In this case, what is returned by GET (HTML plus date) differs from
   the persistent state of the resource (HTML plus directive).
   Typically there is no way to access the HTML resource containing the
   unprocessed directive.

   Sometimes the entity returned by GET is the output of a data-
   producing process that is described by one or more source resources
   (that may not even have a location in the URI namespace).  A single
   data-producing process may dynamically generate the state of a
   potentially large number of output resources.  An example of this is
   a CGI script that describes a "finger" gateway process that maps part
   of the namespace of a server into finger requests, such as
   http://www.foo.bar.org/finger_gateway/user@host.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 13]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   In the absence of distributed authoring capabilities, it is
   acceptable to have no mapping of source resource(s) to the URI
   namespace. In fact, preventing access to the source resource(s) has
   desirable security benefits.  However, if remote editing of the
   source resource(s) is desired, the source resource(s) should be given
   a location in the URI namespace.  This source location should not be
   one of the locations at which the generated output is retrievable,
   since in general it is impossible for the server to differentiate
   requests for source resources from requests for process output
   resources.  There is often a many-to-many relationship between source
   resources and output resources.

   On WebDAV compliant servers the URI of the source resource(s) may be
   stored in a link on the output resource with type DAV:source (see
   section 13.10 for a description of the source link property).
   Storing the source URIs in links on the output resources places the
   burden of discovering the source on the authoring client.  Note that
   the value of a source link is not guaranteed to point to the correct
   source.  Source links may break or incorrect values may be entered.
   Also note that not all servers will allow the client to set the
   source link value.  For example a server which generates source links
   on the fly for its CGI files will most likely not allow a client to
   set the source link value.

6  Locking

   The ability to lock a resource provides a mechanism for serializing
   access to that resource.  Using a lock, an authoring client can
   provide a reasonable guarantee that another principal will not modify
   a resource while it is being edited.  In this way, a client can
   prevent the "lost update" problem.

   This specification allows locks to vary over two client-specified
   parameters, the number of principals involved (exclusive vs. shared)
   and the type of access to be granted. This document defines locking
   for only one access type, write. However, the syntax is extensible,
   and permits the eventual specification of locking for other access
   types.

6.1 Exclusive Vs. Shared Locks

   The most basic form of lock is an exclusive lock.  This is a lock
   where the access right in question is only granted to a single
   principal.  The need for this arbitration results from a desire to
   avoid having to merge results.






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 14]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   However, there are times when the goal of a lock is not to exclude
   others from exercising an access right but rather to provide a
   mechanism for principals to indicate that they intend to exercise
   their access rights.  Shared locks are provided for this case.  A
   shared lock allows multiple principals to receive a lock.  Hence any
   principal with appropriate access can get the lock.

   With shared locks there are two trust sets that affect a resource.
   The first trust set is created by access permissions.  Principals who
   are trusted, for example, may have permission to write to the
   resource.  Among those who have access permission to write to the
   resource, the set of principals who have taken out a shared lock also
   must trust each other, creating a (typically) smaller trust set
   within the access permission write set.

   Starting with every possible principal on the Internet, in most
   situations the vast majority of these principals will not have write
   access to a given resource.  Of the small number who do have write
   access, some principals may decide to guarantee their edits are free
   from overwrite conflicts by using exclusive write locks.  Others may
   decide they trust their collaborators will not overwrite their work
   (the potential set of collaborators being the set of principals who
   have write permission) and use a shared lock, which informs their
   collaborators that a principal may be working on the resource.

   The WebDAV extensions to HTTP do not need to provide all of the
   communications paths necessary for principals to coordinate their
   activities.  When using shared locks, principals may use any out of
   band communication channel to coordinate their work (e.g., face-to-
   face interaction, written notes, post-it notes on the screen,
   telephone conversation, Email, etc.)  The intent of a shared lock is
   to let collaborators know who else may be working on a resource.

   Shared locks are included because experience from web distributed
   authoring systems has indicated that exclusive locks are often too
   rigid.  An exclusive lock is used to enforce a particular editing
   process: take out an exclusive lock, read the resource, perform
   edits, write the resource, release the lock.  This editing process
   has the problem that locks are not always properly released, for
   example when a program crashes, or when a lock owner leaves without
   unlocking a resource.  While both timeouts and administrative action
   can be used to remove an offending lock, neither mechanism may be
   available when needed; the timeout may be long or the administrator
   may not be available.







Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 15]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


6.2 Required Support

   A WebDAV compliant server is not required to support locking in any
   form.  If the server does support locking it may choose to support
   any combination of exclusive and shared locks for any access types.

   The reason for this flexibility is that locking policy strikes to the
   very heart of the resource management and versioning systems employed
   by various storage repositories.  These repositories require control
   over what sort of locking will be made available.  For example, some
   repositories only support shared write locks while others only
   provide support for exclusive write locks while yet others use no
   locking at all.  As each system is sufficiently different to merit
   exclusion of certain locking features, this specification leaves
   locking as the sole axis of negotiation within WebDAV.

6.3 Lock Tokens

   A lock token is a type of state token, represented as a URI, which
   identifies a particular lock.  A lock token is returned by every
   successful LOCK operation in the lockdiscovery property in the
   response body, and can also be found through lock discovery on a
   resource.

   Lock token URIs MUST be unique across all resources for all time.
   This uniqueness constraint allows lock tokens to be submitted across
   resources and servers without fear of confusion.

   This specification provides a lock token URI scheme called
   opaquelocktoken that meets the uniqueness requirements.  However
   resources are free to return any URI scheme so long as it meets the
   uniqueness requirements.

   Having a lock token provides no special access rights. Anyone can
   find out anyone else's lock token by performing lock discovery.
   Locks MUST be enforced based upon whatever authentication mechanism
   is used by the server, not based on the secrecy of the token values.

6.4 opaquelocktoken Lock Token URI Scheme

   The opaquelocktoken URI scheme is designed to be unique across all
   resources for all time.  Due to this uniqueness quality, a client may
   submit an opaque lock token in an If header on a resource other than
   the one that returned it.

   All resources MUST recognize the opaquelocktoken scheme and, at
   minimum, recognize that the lock token does not refer to an
   outstanding lock on the resource.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 16]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   In order to guarantee uniqueness across all resources for all time
   the opaquelocktoken requires the use of the Universal Unique
   Identifier (UUID) mechanism, as described in [ISO-11578].

   Opaquelocktoken generators, however, have a choice of how they create
   these tokens.  They can either generate a new UUID for every lock
   token they create or they can create a single UUID  and then add
   extension characters.  If the second method is selected then the
   program generating the extensions MUST guarantee that the same
   extension will never be used twice with the associated UUID.

   OpaqueLockToken-URI = "opaquelocktoken:" UUID [Extension]  ; The UUID
   production is the string representation of a UUID, as defined in
   [ISO-11578]. Note that white space (LWS) is not allowed between
   elements of this production.

   Extension = path  ; path is defined in section 3.2.1 of RFC 2068
   [RFC2068]

6.4.1 Node Field Generation Without the IEEE 802 Address

   UUIDs, as defined in [ISO-11578], contain a "node" field that
   contains one of the IEEE 802 addresses for the server machine.  As
   noted in section 17.8, there are several security risks associated
   with exposing a machine's IEEE 802 address. This section provides an
   alternate mechanism for generating the "node" field of a UUID which
   does not employ an IEEE 802 address.  WebDAV servers MAY use this
   algorithm for creating the node field when generating UUIDs.  The
   text in this section is originally from an Internet-Draft by Paul
   Leach and Rich Salz, who are noted here to properly attribute their
   work.

   The ideal solution is to obtain a 47 bit cryptographic quality random
   number, and use it as the low 47 bits of the node ID, with the most
   significant bit of the first octet of the node ID set to 1.  This bit
   is the unicast/multicast bit, which will never be set in IEEE 802
   addresses obtained from network cards; hence, there can never be a
   conflict between UUIDs generated by machines with and without network
   cards.

   If a system does not have a primitive to generate cryptographic
   quality random numbers, then in most systems there are usually a
   fairly large number of sources of randomness available from which one
   can be generated. Such sources are system specific, but often
   include:






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 17]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


     - the percent of memory in use
     - the size of main memory in bytes
     - the amount of free main memory in bytes
     - the size of the paging or swap file in bytes
     - free bytes of paging or swap file
     - the total size of user virtual address space in bytes
     - the total available user address space bytes
     - the size of boot disk drive in bytes
     - the free disk space on boot drive in bytes
     - the current time
     - the amount of time since the system booted
     - the individual sizes of files in various system directories
     - the creation, last read, and modification times of files in
       various system directories
     - the utilization factors of various system resources (heap, etc.)
     - current mouse cursor position
     - current caret position
     - current number of running processes, threads
     - handles or IDs of the desktop window and the active window
     - the value of stack pointer of the caller
     - the process and thread ID of caller
     - various processor architecture specific performance counters
       (instructions executed, cache misses, TLB misses)

   (Note that it is precisely the above kinds of sources of randomness
   that are used to seed cryptographic quality random number generators
   on systems without special hardware for their construction.)

   In addition, items such as the computer's name and the name of the
   operating system, while not strictly speaking random, will help
   differentiate the results from those obtained by other systems.

   The exact algorithm to generate a node ID using these data is system
   specific, because both the data available and the functions to obtain
   them are often very system specific. However, assuming that one can
   concatenate all the values from the randomness sources into a buffer,
   and that a cryptographic hash function such as MD5 is available, then
   any 6 bytes of the MD5 hash of the buffer, with the multicast bit
   (the high bit of the first byte) set will be an appropriately random
   node ID.

   Other hash functions, such as SHA-1, can also be used. The only
   requirement is that the result be suitably random _ in the sense that
   the outputs from a set uniformly distributed inputs are themselves
   uniformly distributed, and that a single bit change in the input can
   be expected to cause half of the output bits to change.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 18]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


6.5 Lock Capability Discovery

   Since server lock support is optional, a client trying to lock a
   resource on a server can either try the lock and hope for the best,
   or perform some form of discovery to determine what lock capabilities
   the server supports.  This is known as lock capability discovery.
   Lock capability discovery differs from discovery of supported access
   control types, since there may be access control types without
   corresponding lock types.  A client can determine what lock types the
   server supports by retrieving the supportedlock property.

   Any DAV compliant resource that supports the LOCK method MUST support
   the supportedlock property.

6.6 Active Lock Discovery

   If another principal locks a resource that a principal wishes to
   access, it is useful for the second principal to be able to find out
   who the first principal is.  For this purpose the lockdiscovery
   property is provided.  This property lists all outstanding locks,
   describes their type, and where available, provides their lock token.

   Any DAV compliant resource that supports the LOCK method MUST support
   the lockdiscovery property.

6.7 Usage Considerations

   Although the locking mechanisms specified here provide some help in
   preventing lost updates, they cannot guarantee that updates will
   never be lost.  Consider the following scenario:

   Two clients A and B are interested in editing the resource '
   index.html'.  Client A is an HTTP client rather than a WebDAV client,
   and so does not know how to perform locking.
   Client A doesn't lock the document, but does a GET and begins
   editing.
   Client B does LOCK, performs a GET and begins editing.
   Client B finishes editing, performs a PUT, then an UNLOCK.
   Client A performs a PUT, overwriting and losing all of B's changes.

   There are several reasons why the WebDAV protocol itself cannot
   prevent this situation.  First, it cannot force all clients to use
   locking because it must be compatible with HTTP clients that do not
   comprehend locking.  Second, it cannot require servers to support
   locking because of the variety of repository implementations, some of
   which rely on reservations and merging rather than on locking.
   Finally, being stateless, it cannot enforce a sequence of operations
   like LOCK / GET / PUT / UNLOCK.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 19]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   WebDAV servers that support locking can reduce the likelihood that
   clients will accidentally overwrite each other's changes by requiring
   clients to lock resources before modifying them.  Such servers would
   effectively prevent HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1 clients from modifying
   resources.

   WebDAV clients can be good citizens by using a lock / retrieve /
   write /unlock sequence of operations (at least by default) whenever
   they interact with a WebDAV server that supports locking.

   HTTP 1.1 clients can be good citizens, avoiding overwriting other
   clients' changes, by using entity tags in If-Match headers with any
   requests that would modify resources.

   Information managers may attempt to prevent overwrites by
   implementing client-side procedures requiring locking before
   modifying WebDAV resources.

7  Write Lock

   This section describes the semantics specific to the write lock type.
   The write lock is a specific instance of a lock type, and is the only
   lock type described in this specification.

7.1 Methods Restricted by Write Locks

   A write lock MUST prevent a principal without the lock from
   successfully executing a PUT, POST, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, MOVE,
   DELETE, or MKCOL on the locked resource.  All other current methods,
   GET in particular, function independently of the lock.

   Note, however, that as new methods are created it will be necessary
   to specify how they interact with a write lock.

7.2 Write Locks and Lock Tokens

   A successful request for an exclusive or shared write lock MUST
   result in the generation of a unique lock token associated with the
   requesting principal.  Thus if five principals have a shared write
   lock on the same resource there will be five lock tokens, one for
   each principal.

7.3 Write Locks and Properties

   While those without a write lock may not alter a property on a
   resource it is still possible for the values of live properties to
   change, even while locked, due to the requirements of their schemas.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 20]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Only dead properties and live properties defined to respect locks are
   guaranteed not to change while write locked.

7.4 Write Locks and Null Resources

   It is possible to assert a write lock on a null resource in order to
   lock the name.

   A write locked null resource, referred to as a lock-null resource,
   MUST respond with a 404 (Not Found) or 405 (Method Not Allowed) to
   any HTTP/1.1 or DAV methods except for PUT, MKCOL, OPTIONS, PROPFIND,
   LOCK, and UNLOCK.  A lock-null resource MUST appear as a member of
   its parent collection.  Additionally the lock-null resource MUST have
   defined on it all mandatory DAV properties.  Most of these
   properties, such as all the get* properties, will have no value as a
   lock-null resource does not support the GET method.  Lock-Null
   resources MUST have defined values for lockdiscovery and
   supportedlock properties.

   Until a method such as PUT or MKCOL is successfully executed on the
   lock-null resource the resource MUST stay in the lock-null state.
   However, once a PUT or MKCOL is successfully executed on a lock-null
   resource the resource ceases to be in the lock-null state.

   If the resource is unlocked, for any reason, without a PUT, MKCOL, or
   similar method having been successfully executed upon it then the
   resource MUST return to the null state.

7.5 Write Locks and Collections

   A write lock on a collection, whether created by a "Depth: 0" or
   "Depth: infinity" lock request, prevents the addition or removal of
   member URIs of the collection by non-lock owners.  As a consequence,
   when a principal issues a PUT or POST request to create a new
   resource under a URI which needs to be an internal member of a write
   locked collection to maintain HTTP namespace consistency, or issues a
   DELETE to remove a resource which has a URI which is an existing
   internal member URI of a write locked collection, this request MUST
   fail if the principal does not have a write lock on the collection.

   However, if a write lock request is issued to a collection containing
   member URIs identifying resources that are currently locked in a
   manner which conflicts with the write lock, the request MUST fail
   with a 423 (Locked) status code.

   If a lock owner causes the URI of a resource to be added as an
   internal member URI of a locked collection then the new resource MUST
   be automatically added to the lock.  This is the only mechanism that



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 21]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   allows a resource to be added to a write lock.  Thus, for example, if
   the collection /a/b/ is write locked and the resource /c is moved to
   /a/b/c then resource /a/b/c will be added to the write lock.

7.6 Write Locks and the If Request Header

   If a user agent is not required to have knowledge about a lock when
   requesting an operation on a locked resource, the following scenario
   might occur.  Program A, run by User A, takes out a write lock on a
   resource.  Program B, also run by User A, has no knowledge of the
   lock taken out by Program A, yet performs a PUT to the locked
   resource.  In this scenario, the PUT succeeds because locks are
   associated with a principal, not a program, and thus program B,
   because it is acting with principal A's credential, is allowed to
   perform the PUT.  However, had program B known about the lock, it
   would not have overwritten the resource, preferring instead to
   present a dialog box describing the conflict to the user.  Due to
   this scenario, a mechanism is needed to prevent different programs
   from accidentally ignoring locks taken out by other programs with the
   same authorization.

   In order to prevent these collisions a lock token MUST be submitted
   by an authorized principal in the If header for all locked resources
   that a method may interact with or the method MUST fail.  For
   example, if a resource is to be moved and both the source and
   destination are locked then two lock tokens must be submitted, one
   for the source and the other for the destination.

7.6.1 Example - Write Lock

   >>Request

   COPY /~fielding/index.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.ics.uci.edu
   Destination: http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html
   If: <http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html>
       (<opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>)

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

   In this example, even though both the source and destination are
   locked, only one lock token must be submitted, for the lock on the
   destination.  This is because the source resource is not modified by
   a COPY, and hence unaffected by the write lock. In this example, user
   agent authentication has previously occurred via a mechanism outside
   the scope of the HTTP protocol, in the underlying transport layer.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 22]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


7.7 Write Locks and COPY/MOVE

   A COPY method invocation MUST NOT duplicate any write locks active on
   the source.  However, as previously noted, if the COPY copies the
   resource into a collection that is locked with "Depth: infinity",
   then the resource will be added to the lock.

   A successful MOVE request on a write locked resource MUST NOT move
   the write lock with the resource. However, the resource is subject to
   being added to an existing lock at the destination, as specified in
   section 7.5. For example, if the MOVE makes the resource a child of a
   collection that is locked with "Depth: infinity", then the resource
   will be added to that collection's lock. Additionally, if a resource
   locked with "Depth: infinity" is moved to a destination that is
   within the scope of the same lock (e.g., within the namespace tree
   covered by the lock), the moved resource will again be a added to the
   lock. In both these examples, as specified in section 7.6, an If
   header must be submitted containing a lock token for both the source
   and destination.

7.8 Refreshing Write Locks

   A client MUST NOT submit the same write lock request twice.  Note
   that a client is always aware it is resubmitting the same lock
   request because it must include the lock token in the If header in
   order to make the request for a resource that is already locked.

   However, a client may submit a LOCK method with an If header but
   without a body.  This form of LOCK MUST only be used to "refresh" a
   lock.  Meaning, at minimum, that any timers associated with the lock
   MUST be re-set.

   A server may return a Timeout header with a lock refresh that is
   different than the Timeout header returned when the lock was
   originally requested.  Additionally clients may submit Timeout
   headers of arbitrary value with their lock refresh requests.
   Servers, as always, may ignore Timeout headers submitted by the
   client.

   If an error is received in response to a refresh LOCK request the
   client SHOULD assume that the lock was not refreshed.

8  HTTP Methods for Distributed Authoring

   The following new HTTP methods use XML as a request and response
   format.  All DAV compliant clients and resources MUST use XML parsers
   that are compliant with [REC-XML].  All XML used in either requests
   or responses MUST be, at minimum, well formed.  If a server receives



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 23]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   ill-formed XML in a request it MUST reject the entire request with a
   400 (Bad Request).  If a client receives ill-formed XML in a response
   then it MUST NOT assume anything about the outcome of the executed
   method and SHOULD treat the server as malfunctioning.

8.1 PROPFIND

   The PROPFIND method retrieves properties defined on the resource
   identified by the Request-URI, if the resource does not have any
   internal members, or on the resource identified by the Request-URI
   and potentially its member resources, if the resource is a collection
   that has internal member URIs.  All DAV compliant resources MUST
   support the PROPFIND method and the propfind XML element (section
   12.14) along with all XML elements defined for use with that element.

   A client may submit a Depth header with a value of "0", "1", or
   "infinity" with a PROPFIND on a collection resource with internal
   member URIs.  DAV compliant servers MUST support the "0", "1" and
   "infinity" behaviors. By default, the PROPFIND method without a Depth
   header MUST act as if a "Depth: infinity" header was included.

   A client may submit a propfind XML element in the body of the request
   method describing what information is being requested.  It is
   possible to request particular property values, all property values,
   or a list of the names of the resource's properties.  A client may
   choose not to submit a request body.  An empty PROPFIND request body
   MUST be treated as a request for the names and values of all
   properties.

   All servers MUST support returning a response of content type
   text/xml or application/xml that contains a multistatus XML element
   that describes the results of the attempts to retrieve the various
   properties.

   If there is an error retrieving a property then a proper error result
   MUST be included in the response.  A request to retrieve the value of
   a property which does not exist is an error and MUST be noted, if the
   response uses a multistatus XML element, with a response XML element
   which contains a 404 (Not Found) status value.

   Consequently, the multistatus XML element for a collection resource
   with member URIs MUST include a response XML element for each member
   URI of the collection, to whatever depth was requested. Each response
   XML element MUST contain an href XML element that gives the URI of
   the resource on which the properties in the prop XML element are
   defined.  Results for a PROPFIND on a collection resource with
   internal member URIs are returned as a flat list whose order of
   entries is not significant.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 24]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   In the case of allprop and propname, if a principal does not have the
   right to know whether a particular property exists then the property
   should be silently excluded from the response.

   The results of this method SHOULD NOT be cached.

8.1.1 Example - Retrieving Named Properties

   >>Request

   PROPFIND  /file HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Content-type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
          <R:bigbox/>
          <R:author/>
          <R:DingALing/>
          <R:Random/>
     </D:prop>
   </D:propfind>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.bar/file</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
                    <R:bigbox>
                         <R:BoxType>Box type A</R:BoxType>
                    </R:bigbox>
                    <R:author>
                         <R:Name>J.J. Johnson</R:Name>
                    </R:author>
               </D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop><R:DingALing/><R:Random/></D:prop>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 25]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden</D:status>
               <D:responsedescription> The user does not have access to
   the DingALing property.
               </D:responsedescription>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
     <D:responsedescription> There has been an access violation error.
     </D:responsedescription>
   </D:multistatus>

   In this example, PROPFIND is executed on a non-collection resource
   http://www.foo.bar/file.  The propfind XML element specifies the name
   of four properties whose values are being requested. In this case
   only two properties were returned, since the principal issuing the
   request did not have sufficient access rights to see the third and
   fourth properties.

8.1.2 Example - Using allprop to Retrieve All Properties

   >>Request

   PROPFIND  /container/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Depth: 1
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:allprop/>
   </D:propfind>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.bar/container/</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
                    <R:bigbox>
                         <R:BoxType>Box type A</R:BoxType>
                    </R:bigbox>
                    <R:author>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 26]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


                         <R:Name>Hadrian</R:Name>
                    </R:author>
                    <D:creationdate>
                         1997-12-01T17:42:21-08:00
                    </D:creationdate>
                    <D:displayname>
                         Example collection
                    </D:displayname>
                    <D:resourcetype><D:collection/></D:resourcetype>
                    <D:supportedlock>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:shared/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                    </D:supportedlock>
               </D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.bar/container/front.html</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
                    <R:bigbox>
                         <R:BoxType>Box type B</R:BoxType>
                    </R:bigbox>
                    <D:creationdate>
                         1997-12-01T18:27:21-08:00
                    </D:creationdate>
                    <D:displayname>
                         Example HTML resource
                    </D:displayname>
                    <D:getcontentlength>
                         4525
                    </D:getcontentlength>
                    <D:getcontenttype>
                         text/html
                    </D:getcontenttype>
                    <D:getetag>
                         zzyzx
                    </D:getetag>
                    <D:getlastmodified>
                         Monday, 12-Jan-98 09:25:56 GMT
                    </D:getlastmodified>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 27]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


                    <D:resourcetype/>
                    <D:supportedlock>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:shared/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                    </D:supportedlock>
               </D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
   </D:multistatus>

   In this example, PROPFIND was invoked on the resource
   http://www.foo.bar/container/ with a Depth header of 1, meaning the
   request applies to the resource and its children, and a propfind XML
   element containing the allprop XML element, meaning the request
   should return the name and value of all properties defined on each
   resource.

   The resource http://www.foo.bar/container/ has six properties defined
   on it:

   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/bigbox,
   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/author, DAV:creationdate,
   DAV:displayname, DAV:resourcetype, and DAV:supportedlock.

   The last four properties are WebDAV-specific, defined in section 13.
   Since GET is not supported on this resource, the get* properties
   (e.g., getcontentlength) are not defined on this resource. The DAV-
   specific properties assert that "container" was created on December
   1, 1997, at 5:42:21PM, in a time zone 8 hours west of GMT
   (creationdate), has a name of "Example collection" (displayname), a
   collection resource type (resourcetype), and supports exclusive write
   and shared write locks (supportedlock).

   The resource http://www.foo.bar/container/front.html has nine
   properties defined on it:

   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/bigbox (another instance of the "bigbox"
   property type), DAV:creationdate, DAV:displayname,
   DAV:getcontentlength, DAV:getcontenttype, DAV:getetag,
   DAV:getlastmodified, DAV:resourcetype, and DAV:supportedlock.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 28]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   The DAV-specific properties assert that "front.html" was created on
   December 1, 1997, at 6:27:21PM, in a time zone 8 hours west of GMT
   (creationdate), has a name of "Example HTML resource" (displayname),
   a content length of 4525 bytes (getcontentlength), a MIME type of
   "text/html" (getcontenttype), an entity tag of "zzyzx" (getetag), was
   last modified on Monday, January 12, 1998, at 09:25:56 GMT
   (getlastmodified), has an empty resource type, meaning that it is not
   a collection (resourcetype), and supports both exclusive write and
   shared write locks (supportedlock).

8.1.3 Example - Using propname to Retrieve all Property Names

   >>Request

   PROPFIND  /container/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <propfind xmlns="DAV:">
     <propname/>
   </propfind>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <multistatus xmlns="DAV:">
     <response>
          <href>http://www.foo.bar/container/</href>
          <propstat>
               <prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
                    <R:bigbox/>
                    <R:author/>
                    <creationdate/>
                    <displayname/>
                    <resourcetype/>
                    <supportedlock/>
               </prop>
               <status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</status>
          </propstat>
     </response>
     <response>
          <href>http://www.foo.bar/container/front.html</href>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 29]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


          <propstat>
               <prop xmlns:R="http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/">
                    <R:bigbox/>
                    <creationdate/>
                    <displayname/>
                    <getcontentlength/>
                    <getcontenttype/>
                    <getetag/>
                    <getlastmodified/>
                    <resourcetype/>
                    <supportedlock/>
               </prop>
               <status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</status>
          </propstat>
     </response>
   </multistatus>


   In this example, PROPFIND is invoked on the collection resource
   http://www.foo.bar/container/, with a propfind XML element containing
   the propname XML element, meaning the name of all properties should
   be returned.  Since no Depth header is present, it assumes its
   default value of "infinity", meaning the name of the properties on
   the collection and all its progeny should be returned.

   Consistent with the previous example, resource
   http://www.foo.bar/container/ has six properties defined on it,
   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/bigbox,
   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/author, DAV:creationdate,
   DAV:displayname, DAV:resourcetype, and DAV:supportedlock.

   The resource http://www.foo.bar/container/index.html, a member of the
   "container" collection, has nine properties defined on it,
   http://www.foo.bar/boxschema/bigbox, DAV:creationdate,
   DAV:displayname, DAV:getcontentlength, DAV:getcontenttype,
   DAV:getetag, DAV:getlastmodified, DAV:resourcetype, and
   DAV:supportedlock.

   This example also demonstrates the use of XML namespace scoping, and
   the default namespace.  Since the "xmlns" attribute does not contain
   an explicit "shorthand name" (prefix) letter, the namespace applies
   by default to all enclosed elements.  Hence, all elements which do
   not explicitly state the namespace to which they belong are members
   of the "DAV:" namespace schema.







Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 30]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.2 PROPPATCH

   The PROPPATCH method processes instructions specified in the request
   body to set and/or remove properties defined on the resource
   identified by the Request-URI.

   All DAV compliant resources MUST support the PROPPATCH method and
   MUST process instructions that are specified using the
   propertyupdate, set, and remove XML elements of the DAV schema.
   Execution of the directives in this method is, of course, subject to
   access control constraints.  DAV compliant resources SHOULD support
   the setting of arbitrary dead properties.

   The request message body of a PROPPATCH method MUST contain the
   propertyupdate XML element.  Instruction processing MUST occur in the
   order instructions are received (i.e., from top to bottom).
   Instructions MUST either all be executed or none executed. Thus if
   any error occurs during processing all executed instructions MUST be
   undone and a proper error result returned. Instruction processing
   details can be found in the definition of the set and remove
   instructions in section 12.13.

8.2.1 Status Codes for use with 207 (Multi-Status)

   The following are examples of response codes one would expect to be
   used in a 207 (Multi-Status) response for this method.  Note,
   however, that unless explicitly prohibited any 2/3/4/5xx series
   response code may be used in a 207 (Multi-Status) response.

   200 (OK) - The command succeeded.  As there can be a mixture of sets
   and removes in a body, a 201 (Created) seems inappropriate.

   403 (Forbidden) - The client, for reasons the server chooses not to
   specify, cannot alter one of the properties.

   409 (Conflict) - The client has provided a value whose semantics are
   not appropriate for the property.  This includes trying to set read-
   only properties.

   423 (Locked) - The specified resource is locked and the client either
   is not a lock owner or the lock type requires a lock token to be
   submitted and the client did not submit it.

   507 (Insufficient Storage) - The server did not have sufficient space
   to record the property.






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 31]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.2.2 Example - PROPPATCH

   >>Request

   PROPPATCH /bar.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.com
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propertyupdate xmlns:D="DAV:"
   xmlns:Z="http://www.w3.com/standards/z39.50/">
     <D:set>
          <D:prop>
               <Z:authors>
                    <Z:Author>Jim Whitehead</Z:Author>
                    <Z:Author>Roy Fielding</Z:Author>
               </Z:authors>
          </D:prop>
     </D:set>
     <D:remove>
          <D:prop><Z:Copyright-Owner/></D:prop>
     </D:remove>
   </D:propertyupdate>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:"
   xmlns:Z="http://www.w3.com/standards/z39.50">
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.com/bar.html</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop><Z:Authors/></D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 424 Failed Dependency</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop><Z:Copyright-Owner/></D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
          <D:responsedescription> Copyright Owner can not be deleted or
   altered.</D:responsedescription>
     </D:response>
   </D:multistatus>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 32]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   In this example, the client requests the server to set the value of
   the http://www.w3.com/standards/z39.50/Authors property, and to
   remove the property http://www.w3.com/standards/z39.50/Copyright-
   Owner.  Since the Copyright-Owner property could not be removed, no
   property modifications occur.  The 424 (Failed Dependency) status
   code for the Authors property indicates this action would have
   succeeded if it were not for the conflict with removing the
   Copyright-Owner property.

8.3 MKCOL Method

   The MKCOL method is used to create a new collection. All DAV
   compliant resources MUST support the MKCOL method.

8.3.1 Request

   MKCOL creates a new collection resource at the location specified by
   the Request-URI.  If the resource identified by the Request-URI is
   non-null then the MKCOL MUST fail.  During MKCOL processing, a server
   MUST make the Request-URI a member of its parent collection, unless
   the Request-URI is "/".  If no such ancestor exists, the method MUST
   fail.  When the MKCOL operation creates a new collection resource,
   all ancestors MUST already exist, or the method MUST fail with a 409
   (Conflict) status code.  For example, if a request to create
   collection /a/b/c/d/ is made, and neither /a/b/ nor /a/b/c/ exists,
   the request must fail.

   When MKCOL is invoked without a request body, the newly created
   collection SHOULD have no members.

   A MKCOL request message may contain a message body.  The behavior of
   a MKCOL request when the body is present is limited to creating
   collections, members of a collection, bodies of members and
   properties on the collections or members.  If the server receives a
   MKCOL request entity type it does not support or understand it MUST
   respond with a 415 (Unsupported Media Type) status code.  The exact
   behavior of MKCOL for various request media types is undefined in
   this document, and will be specified in separate documents.

8.3.2 Status Codes

   Responses from a MKCOL request MUST NOT be cached as MKCOL has non-
   idempotent semantics.

   201 (Created) - The collection or structured resource was created in
   its entirety.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 33]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   403 (Forbidden) - This indicates at least one of two conditions: 1)
   the server does not allow the creation of collections at the given
   location in its namespace, or 2) the parent collection of the
   Request-URI exists but cannot accept members.

   405 (Method Not Allowed) - MKCOL can only be executed on a
   deleted/non-existent resource.

   409 (Conflict) - A collection cannot be made at the Request-URI until
   one or more intermediate collections have been created.

   415 (Unsupported Media Type)- The server does not support the request
   type of the body.

   507 (Insufficient Storage) - The resource does not have sufficient
   space to record the state of the resource after the execution of this
   method.

8.3.3 Example - MKCOL

   This example creates a collection called /webdisc/xfiles/ on the
   server www.server.org.

   >>Request

   MKCOL /webdisc/xfiles/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.server.org

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 201 Created

8.4 GET, HEAD for Collections

   The semantics of GET are unchanged when applied to a collection,
   since GET is defined as, "retrieve whatever information (in the form
   of an entity) is identified by the Request-URI" [RFC2068].  GET when
   applied to a collection may return the contents of an "index.html"
   resource, a human-readable view of the contents of the collection, or
   something else altogether. Hence it is possible that the result of a
   GET on a collection will bear no correlation to the membership of the
   collection.

   Similarly, since the definition of HEAD is a GET without a response
   message body, the semantics of HEAD are unmodified when applied to
   collection resources.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 34]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.5 POST for Collections

   Since by definition the actual function performed by POST is
   determined by the server and often depends on the particular
   resource, the behavior of POST when applied to collections cannot be
   meaningfully modified because it is largely undefined.  Thus the
   semantics of POST are unmodified when applied to a collection.

8.6 DELETE

   8.6.1 DELETE for Non-Collection Resources

   If the DELETE method is issued to a non-collection resource whose
   URIs are an internal member of one or more collections, then during
   DELETE processing a server MUST remove any URI for the resource
   identified by the Request-URI from collections which contain it as a
   member.

8.6.2 DELETE for Collections

   The DELETE method on a collection MUST act as if a "Depth: infinity"
   header was used on it.  A client MUST NOT submit a Depth header with
   a DELETE on a collection with any value but infinity.

   DELETE instructs that the collection specified in the Request-URI and
   all resources identified by its internal member URIs are to be
   deleted.

   If any resource identified by a member URI cannot be deleted then all
   of the member's ancestors MUST NOT be deleted, so as to maintain
   namespace consistency.

   Any headers included with DELETE MUST be applied in processing every
   resource to be deleted.

   When the DELETE method has completed processing it MUST result in a
   consistent namespace.

   If an error occurs with a resource other than the resource identified
   in the Request-URI then the response MUST be a 207 (Multi-Status).
   424 (Failed Dependency) errors SHOULD NOT be in the 207 (Multi-
   Status).  They can be safely left out because the client will know
   that the ancestors of a resource could not be deleted when the client
   receives an error for the ancestor's progeny.  Additionally 204 (No
   Content) errors SHOULD NOT be returned in the 207 (Multi-Status).
   The reason for this prohibition is that 204 (No Content) is the
   default success code.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 35]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.6.2.1 Example - DELETE

   >>Request

   DELETE  /container/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <d:multistatus xmlns:d="DAV:">
     <d:response>
          <d:href>http://www.foo.bar/container/resource3</d:href>
          <d:status>HTTP/1.1 423 Locked</d:status>
     </d:response>
   </d:multistatus>

   In this example the attempt to delete
   http://www.foo.bar/container/resource3 failed because it is locked,
   and no lock token was submitted with the request. Consequently, the
   attempt to delete http://www.foo.bar/container/ also failed. Thus the
   client knows that the attempt to delete http://www.foo.bar/container/
   must have also failed since the parent can not be deleted unless its
   child has also been deleted.  Even though a Depth header has not been
   included, a depth of infinity is assumed because the method is on a
   collection.

8.7 PUT

8.7.1 PUT for Non-Collection Resources

   A PUT performed on an existing resource replaces the GET response
   entity of the resource.  Properties defined on the resource may be
   recomputed during PUT processing but are not otherwise affected.  For
   example, if a server recognizes the content type of the request body,
   it may be able to automatically extract information that could be
   profitably exposed as properties.

   A PUT that would result in the creation of a resource without an
   appropriately scoped parent collection MUST fail with a 409
   (Conflict).






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 36]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.7.2 PUT for Collections

   As defined in the HTTP/1.1 specification [RFC2068], the "PUT method
   requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the supplied
   Request-URI."  Since submission of an entity representing a
   collection would implicitly encode creation and deletion of
   resources, this specification intentionally does not define a
   transmission format for creating a collection using PUT.  Instead,
   the MKCOL method is defined to create collections.

   When the PUT operation creates a new non-collection resource all
   ancestors MUST already exist.  If all ancestors do not exist, the
   method MUST fail with a 409 (Conflict) status code.  For example, if
   resource /a/b/c/d.html is to be created and /a/b/c/ does not exist,
   then the request must fail.

8.8 COPY Method

   The COPY method creates a duplicate of the source resource,
   identified by the Request-URI, in the destination resource,
   identified by the URI in the Destination header.  The Destination
   header MUST be present.  The exact behavior of the COPY method
   depends on the type of the source resource.

   All WebDAV compliant resources MUST support the COPY method.
   However, support for the COPY method does not guarantee the ability
   to copy a resource. For example, separate programs may control
   resources on the same server.  As a result, it may not be possible to
   copy a resource to a location that appears to be on the same server.

8.8.1 COPY for HTTP/1.1 resources

   When the source resource is not a collection the result of the COPY
   method is the creation of a new resource at the destination whose
   state and behavior match that of the source resource as closely as
   possible.  After a successful COPY invocation, all properties on the
   source resource MUST be duplicated on the destination resource,
   subject to modifying headers and XML elements, following the
   definition for copying properties.  Since the environment at the
   destination may be different than at the source due to factors
   outside the scope of control of the server, such as the absence of
   resources required for correct operation, it may not be possible to
   completely duplicate the behavior of the resource at the destination.
   Subsequent alterations to the destination resource will not modify
   the source resource.  Subsequent alterations to the source resource
   will not modify the destination resource.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 37]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.8.2. COPY for Properties

   The following section defines how properties on a resource are
   handled during a COPY operation.

   Live properties SHOULD be duplicated as identically behaving live
   properties at the destination resource.  If a property cannot be
   copied live, then its value MUST be duplicated, octet-for-octet, in
   an identically named, dead property on the destination resource
   subject to the effects of the propertybehavior XML element.

   The propertybehavior XML element can specify that properties are
   copied on best effort, that all live properties must be successfully
   copied or the method must fail, or that a specified list of live
   properties must be successfully copied or the method must fail. The
   propertybehavior XML element is defined in section 12.12.

8.8.3 COPY for Collections

   The COPY method on a collection without a Depth header MUST act as if
   a Depth header with value "infinity" was included.  A client may
   submit a Depth header on a COPY on a collection with a value of "0"
   or "infinity".  DAV compliant servers MUST support the "0" and
   "infinity" Depth header behaviors.

   A COPY of depth infinity instructs that the collection resource
   identified by the Request-URI is to be copied to the location
   identified by the URI in the Destination header, and all its internal
   member resources are to be copied to a location relative to it,
   recursively through all levels of the collection hierarchy.

   A COPY of "Depth: 0" only instructs that the collection and its
   properties but not resources identified by its internal member URIs,
   are to be copied.

   Any headers included with a COPY MUST be applied in processing every
   resource to be copied with the exception of the Destination header.

   The Destination header only specifies the destination URI for the
   Request-URI. When applied to members of the collection identified by
   the Request-URI the value of Destination is to be modified to reflect
   the current location in the hierarchy.  So, if the Request- URI is
   /a/ with Host header value http://fun.com/ and the Destination is
   http://fun.com/b/ then when http://fun.com/a/c/d is processed it must
   use a Destination of http://fun.com/b/c/d.






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 38]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   When the COPY method has completed processing it MUST have created a
   consistent namespace at the destination (see section 5.1 for the
   definition of namespace consistency).  However, if an error occurs
   while copying an internal collection, the server MUST NOT copy any
   resources identified by members of this collection (i.e., the server
   must skip this subtree), as this would create an inconsistent
   namespace. After detecting an error, the COPY operation SHOULD try to
   finish as much of the original copy operation as possible (i.e., the
   server should still attempt to copy other subtrees and their members,
   that are not descendents of an error-causing collection).  So, for
   example, if an infinite depth copy operation is performed on
   collection /a/, which contains collections /a/b/ and /a/c/, and an
   error occurs copying /a/b/, an attempt should still be made to copy
   /a/c/. Similarly, after encountering an error copying a non-
   collection resource as part of an infinite depth copy, the server
   SHOULD try to finish as much of the original copy operation as
   possible.

   If an error in executing the COPY method occurs with a resource other
   than the resource identified in the Request-URI then the response
   MUST be a 207 (Multi-Status).

   The 424 (Failed Dependency) status code SHOULD NOT be returned in the
   207 (Multi-Status) response from a COPY method.  These responses can
   be safely omitted because the client will know that the progeny of a
   resource could not be copied when the client receives an error for
   the parent.  Additionally 201 (Created)/204 (No Content) status codes
   SHOULD NOT be returned as values in 207 (Multi-Status) responses from
   COPY methods.  They, too, can be safely omitted because they are the
   default success codes.

8.8.4 COPY and the Overwrite Header

   If a resource exists at the destination and the Overwrite header is
   "T" then prior to performing the copy the server MUST perform a
   DELETE with "Depth: infinity" on the destination resource.  If the
   Overwrite header is set to "F" then the operation will fail.

8.8.5 Status Codes

   201 (Created) - The source resource was successfully copied.  The
   copy operation resulted in the creation of a new resource.

   204 (No Content) - The source resource was successfully copied to a
   pre-existing destination resource.

   403 (Forbidden) _ The source and destination URIs are the same.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 39]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   409 (Conflict) _ A resource cannot be created at the destination
   until one or more intermediate collections have been created.

   412 (Precondition Failed) - The server was unable to maintain the
   liveness of the properties listed in the propertybehavior XML element
   or the Overwrite header is "F" and the state of the destination
   resource is non-null.

   423 (Locked) - The destination resource was locked.

   502 (Bad Gateway) - This may occur when the destination is on another
   server and the destination server refuses to accept the resource.

   507 (Insufficient Storage) - The destination resource does not have
   sufficient space to record the state of the resource after the
   execution of this method.

8.8.6 Example - COPY with Overwrite

   This example shows resource
   http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/index.html being copied to the
   location http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html.  The 204
   (No Content) status code indicates the existing resource at the
   destination was overwritten.

   >>Request

   COPY /~fielding/index.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.ics.uci.edu
   Destination: http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

8.8.7 Example - COPY with No Overwrite

   The following example shows the same copy operation being performed,
   but with the Overwrite header set to "F."  A response of 412
   (Precondition Failed) is returned because the destination resource
   has a non-null state.

   >>Request

   COPY /~fielding/index.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.ics.uci.edu
   Destination: http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html
   Overwrite: F



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 40]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 412 Precondition Failed

8.8.8 Example - COPY of a Collection

      >>Request

      COPY /container/ HTTP/1.1
      Host: www.foo.bar
      Destination: http://www.foo.bar/othercontainer/
      Depth: infinity
      Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
      Content-Length: xxxx

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
      <d:propertybehavior xmlns:d="DAV:">
        <d:keepalive>*</d:keepalive>
      </d:propertybehavior>

      >>Response

      HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
      Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
      Content-Length: xxxx

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
      <d:multistatus xmlns:d="DAV:">
        <d:response>
             <d:href>http://www.foo.bar/othercontainer/R2/</d:href>
             <d:status>HTTP/1.1 412 Precondition Failed</d:status>
        </d:response>
      </d:multistatus>

   The Depth header is unnecessary as the default behavior of COPY on a
   collection is to act as if a "Depth: infinity" header had been
   submitted.  In this example most of the resources, along with the
   collection, were copied successfully. However the collection R2
   failed, most likely due to a problem with maintaining the liveness of
   properties (this is specified by the propertybehavior XML element).
   Because there was an error copying R2, none of R2's members were
   copied.  However no errors were listed for those members due to the
   error minimization rules given in section 8.8.3.








Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 41]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.9 MOVE Method

   The MOVE operation on a non-collection resource is the logical
   equivalent of a copy (COPY), followed by consistency maintenance
   processing, followed by a delete of the source, where all three
   actions are performed atomically.  The consistency maintenance step
   allows the server to perform updates caused by the move, such as
   updating all URIs other than the Request-URI which identify the
   source resource, to point to the new destination resource.
   Consequently, the Destination header MUST be present on all MOVE
   methods and MUST follow all COPY requirements for the COPY part of
   the MOVE method.  All DAV compliant resources MUST support the MOVE
   method.  However, support for the MOVE method does not guarantee the
   ability to move a resource to a particular destination.

   For example, separate programs may actually control different sets of
   resources on the same server.  Therefore, it may not be possible to
   move a resource within a namespace that appears to belong to the same
   server.

   If a resource exists at the destination, the destination resource
   will be DELETEd as a side-effect of the MOVE operation, subject to
   the restrictions of the Overwrite header.

8.9.1 MOVE for Properties

   The behavior of properties on a MOVE, including the effects of the
   propertybehavior XML element, MUST be the same as specified in
   section 8.8.2.

8.9.2 MOVE for Collections

   A MOVE with "Depth: infinity" instructs that the collection
   identified by the Request-URI be moved to the URI specified in the
   Destination header, and all resources identified by its internal
   member URIs are to be moved to locations relative to it, recursively
   through all levels of the collection hierarchy.

   The MOVE method on a collection MUST act as if a "Depth: infinity"
   header was used on it.  A client MUST NOT submit a Depth header on a
   MOVE on a collection with any value but "infinity".

   Any headers included with MOVE MUST be applied in processing every
   resource to be moved with the exception of the Destination header.

   The behavior of the Destination header is the same as given for COPY
   on collections.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 42]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   When the MOVE method has completed processing it MUST have created a
   consistent namespace at both the source and destination (see section
   5.1 for the definition of namespace consistency). However, if an
   error occurs while moving an internal collection, the server MUST NOT
   move any resources identified by members of the failed collection
   (i.e., the server must skip the error-causing subtree), as this would
   create an inconsistent namespace. In this case, after detecting the
   error, the move operation SHOULD try to finish as much of the
   original move as possible (i.e., the server should still attempt to
   move other subtrees and the resources identified by their members,
   that are not descendents of an error-causing collection).  So, for
   example, if an infinite depth move is performed on collection /a/,
   which contains collections /a/b/ and /a/c/, and an error occurs
   moving /a/b/, an attempt should still be made to try moving /a/c/.
   Similarly, after encountering an error moving a non-collection
   resource as part of an infinite depth move, the server SHOULD try to
   finish as much of the original move operation as possible.

   If an error occurs with a resource other than the resource identified
   in the Request-URI then the response MUST be a 207 (Multi-Status).

   The 424 (Failed Dependency) status code SHOULD NOT be returned in the
   207 (Multi-Status) response from a MOVE method.  These errors can be
   safely omitted because the client will know that the progeny of a
   resource could not be moved when the client receives an error for the
   parent.  Additionally 201 (Created)/204 (No Content) responses SHOULD
   NOT be returned as values in 207 (Multi-Status) responses from a
   MOVE.  These responses can be safely omitted because they are the
   default success codes.

8.9.3 MOVE and the Overwrite Header

   If a resource exists at the destination and the Overwrite header is
   "T" then prior to performing the move the server MUST perform a
   DELETE with "Depth: infinity" on the destination resource.  If the
   Overwrite header is set to "F" then the operation will fail.

8.9.4 Status Codes

   201 (Created) - The source resource was successfully moved, and a new
   resource was created at the destination.

   204 (No Content) - The source resource was successfully moved to a
   pre-existing destination resource.

   403 (Forbidden) _ The source and destination URIs are the same.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 43]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   409 (Conflict) _ A resource cannot be created at the destination
   until one or more intermediate collections have been created.

   412 (Precondition Failed) - The server was unable to maintain the
   liveness of the properties listed in the propertybehavior XML element
   or the Overwrite header is "F" and the state of the destination
   resource is non-null.

   423 (Locked) - The source or the destination resource was locked.

   502 (Bad Gateway) - This may occur when the destination is on another
   server and the destination server refuses to accept the resource.

8.9.5 Example - MOVE of a Non-Collection

   This example shows resource
   http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/index.html being moved to the
   location http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html. The
   contents of the destination resource would have been overwritten if
   the destination resource had been non-null.  In this case, since
   there was nothing at the destination resource, the response code is
   201 (Created).

   >>Request

   MOVE /~fielding/index.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.ics.uci.edu
   Destination: http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 201 Created
   Location: http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html


8.9.6 Example - MOVE of a Collection

   >>Request

   MOVE /container/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Destination: http://www.foo.bar/othercontainer/
   Overwrite: F
   If: (<opaquelocktoken:fe184f2e-6eec-41d0-c765-01adc56e6bb4>)
       (<opaquelocktoken:e454f3f3-acdc-452a-56c7-00a5c91e4b77>)
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 44]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <d:propertybehavior xmlns:d='DAV:'>
     <d:keepalive>*</d:keepalive>
   </d:propertybehavior>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <d:multistatus xmlns:d='DAV:'>
     <d:response>
          <d:href>http://www.foo.bar/othercontainer/C2/</d:href>
          <d:status>HTTP/1.1 423 Locked</d:status>
     </d:response>
   </d:multistatus>

   In this example the client has submitted a number of lock tokens with
   the request.  A lock token will need to be submitted for every
   resource, both source and destination, anywhere in the scope of the
   method, that is locked.  In this case the proper lock token was not
   submitted for the destination http://www.foo.bar/othercontainer/C2/.
   This means that the resource /container/C2/ could not be moved.
   Because there was an error copying /container/C2/, none of
   /container/C2's members were copied.  However no errors were listed
   for those members due to the error minimization rules given in
   section 8.8.3.  User agent authentication has previously occurred via
   a mechanism outside the scope of the HTTP protocol, in an underlying
   transport layer.

8.10 LOCK Method

   The following sections describe the LOCK method, which is used to
   take out a lock of any access type.  These sections on the LOCK
   method describe only those semantics that are specific to the LOCK
   method and are independent of the access type of the lock being
   requested.

   Any resource which supports the LOCK method MUST, at minimum, support
   the XML request and response formats defined herein.









Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 45]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.10.1 Operation

   A LOCK method invocation creates the lock specified by the lockinfo
   XML element on the Request-URI.  Lock method requests SHOULD have a
   XML request body which contains an owner XML element for this lock
   request, unless this is a refresh request. The LOCK request may have
   a Timeout header.

   Clients MUST assume that locks may arbitrarily disappear at any time,
   regardless of the value given in the Timeout header.  The Timeout
   header only indicates the behavior of the server if "extraordinary"
   circumstances do not occur.  For example, an administrator may remove
   a lock at any time or the system may crash in such a way that it
   loses the record of the lock's existence. The response MUST contain
   the value of the lockdiscovery property in a prop XML element.

   In order to indicate the lock token associated with a newly created
   lock, a Lock-Token response header MUST be included in the response
   for every successful LOCK request for a new lock.  Note that the
   Lock-Token header would not be returned in the response for a
   successful refresh LOCK request because a new lock was not created.

8.10.2 The Effect of Locks on Properties and Collections

   The scope of a lock is the entire state of the resource, including
   its body and associated properties.  As a result, a lock on a
   resource MUST also lock the resource's properties.

   For collections, a lock also affects the ability to add or remove
   members.  The nature of the effect depends upon the type of access
   control involved.

8.10.3 Locking Replicated Resources

   A resource may be made available through more than one URI. However
   locks apply to resources, not URIs. Therefore a LOCK request on a
   resource MUST NOT succeed if can not be honored by all the URIs
   through which the resource is addressable.

8.10.4 Depth and Locking

   The Depth header may be used with the LOCK method.  Values other than
   0 or infinity MUST NOT be used with the Depth header on a LOCK
   method.  All resources that support the LOCK method MUST support the
   Depth header.

   A Depth header of value 0 means to just lock the resource specified
   by the Request-URI.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 46]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   If the Depth header is set to infinity then the resource specified in
   the Request-URI along with all its internal members, all the way down
   the hierarchy, are to be locked.  A successful result MUST return a
   single lock token which represents all the resources that have been
   locked.  If an UNLOCK is successfully executed on this token, all
   associated resources are unlocked.  If the lock cannot be granted to
   all resources, a 409 (Conflict) status code MUST be returned with a
   response entity body containing a multistatus XML element describing
   which resource(s) prevented the lock from being granted.  Hence,
   partial success is not an option.  Either the entire hierarchy is
   locked or no resources are locked.

   If no Depth header is submitted on a LOCK request then the request
   MUST act as if a "Depth:infinity" had been submitted.

8.10.5 Interaction with other Methods

   The interaction of a LOCK with various methods is dependent upon the
   lock type.  However, independent of lock type, a successful DELETE of
   a resource MUST cause all of its locks to be removed.

8.10.6 Lock Compatibility Table

   The table below describes the behavior that occurs when a lock
   request is made on a resource.

   Current lock state/  |   Shared Lock   |   Exclusive
   Lock request         |                 |   Lock
   =====================+=================+==============
   None                 |   True          |   True
   ---------------------+-----------------+--------------
   Shared Lock          |   True          |   False
   ---------------------+-----------------+--------------
   Exclusive Lock       |   False         |   False*
   ------------------------------------------------------

   Legend: True = lock may be granted.  False = lock MUST NOT be
   granted. *=It is illegal for a principal to request the same lock
   twice.

   The current lock state of a resource is given in the leftmost column,
   and lock requests are listed in the first row.  The intersection of a
   row and column gives the result of a lock request.  For example, if a
   shared lock is held on a resource, and an exclusive lock is
   requested, the table entry is "false", indicating the lock must not
   be granted.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 47]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.10.7 Status Codes

   200 (OK) - The lock request succeeded and the value of the
   lockdiscovery property is included in the body.

   412 (Precondition Failed) - The included lock token was not
   enforceable on this resource or the server could not satisfy the
   request in the lockinfo XML element.

   423 (Locked) - The resource is locked, so the method has been
   rejected.

8.10.8 Example - Simple Lock Request

   >>Request

   LOCK /workspace/webdav/proposal.doc HTTP/1.1
   Host: webdav.sb.aol.com
   Timeout: Infinite, Second-4100000000
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx
   Authorization: Digest username="ejw",
      realm="ejw@webdav.sb.aol.com", nonce="...",
      uri="/workspace/webdav/proposal.doc",
      response="...", opaque="..."

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:lockinfo xmlns:D='DAV:'>
     <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
     <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
     <D:owner>
          <D:href>http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/contact.html</D:href>
     </D:owner>
   </D:lockinfo>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:prop xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:lockdiscovery>
          <D:activelock>
               <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
               <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
               <D:depth>Infinity</D:depth>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 48]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


               <D:owner>
                    <D:href>
                         http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/contact.html
                    </D:href>
               </D:owner>
               <D:timeout>Second-604800</D:timeout>
               <D:locktoken>
                    <D:href>
               opaquelocktoken:e71d4fae-5dec-22d6-fea5-00a0c91e6be4
                    </D:href>
               </D:locktoken>
          </D:activelock>
     </D:lockdiscovery>
   </D:prop>

   This example shows the successful creation of an exclusive write lock
   on resource http://webdav.sb.aol.com/workspace/webdav/proposal.doc.
   The resource http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/contact.html contains
   contact information for the owner of the lock.  The server has an
   activity-based timeout policy in place on this resource, which causes
   the lock to automatically be removed after 1 week (604800 seconds).
   Note that the nonce, response, and opaque fields have not been
   calculated in the Authorization request header.

8.10.9 Example - Refreshing a Write Lock

   >>Request

   LOCK /workspace/webdav/proposal.doc HTTP/1.1
   Host: webdav.sb.aol.com
   Timeout: Infinite, Second-4100000000
   If: (<opaquelocktoken:e71d4fae-5dec-22d6-fea5-00a0c91e6be4>)
   Authorization: Digest username="ejw",
      realm="ejw@webdav.sb.aol.com", nonce="...",
      uri="/workspace/webdav/proposal.doc",
      response="...", opaque="..."

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:prop xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:lockdiscovery>
          <D:activelock>
               <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 49]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


               <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
               <D:depth>Infinity</D:depth>
               <D:owner>
                    <D:href>
                    http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/contact.html
                    </D:href>
               </D:owner>
               <D:timeout>Second-604800</D:timeout>
               <D:locktoken>
                    <D:href>
               opaquelocktoken:e71d4fae-5dec-22d6-fea5-00a0c91e6be4
                    </D:href>
               </D:locktoken>
          </D:activelock>
     </D:lockdiscovery>
   </D:prop>

   This request would refresh the lock, resetting any time outs.  Notice
   that the client asked for an infinite time out but the server choose
   to ignore the request. In this example, the nonce, response, and
   opaque fields have not been calculated in the Authorization request
   header.

8.10.10 Example - Multi-Resource Lock Request

   >>Request

   LOCK /webdav/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: webdav.sb.aol.com
   Timeout: Infinite, Second-4100000000
   Depth: infinity
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx
   Authorization: Digest username="ejw",
      realm="ejw@webdav.sb.aol.com", nonce="...",
      uri="/workspace/webdav/proposal.doc",
      response="...", opaque="..."

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:lockinfo xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
     <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
     <D:owner>
          <D:href>http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/contact.html</D:href>
     </D:owner>
   </D:lockinfo>

   >>Response



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 50]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://webdav.sb.aol.com/webdav/secret</D:href>
          <D:status>HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden</D:status>
     </D:response>
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://webdav.sb.aol.com/webdav/</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop><D:lockdiscovery/></D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 424 Failed Dependency</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
   </D:multistatus>

   This example shows a request for an exclusive write lock on a
   collection and all its children.  In this request, the client has
   specified that it desires an infinite length lock, if available,
   otherwise a timeout of 4.1 billion seconds, if available. The request
   entity body contains the contact information for the principal taking
   out the lock, in this case a web page URL.

   The error is a 403 (Forbidden) response on the resource
   http://webdav.sb.aol.com/webdav/secret.  Because this resource could
   not be locked, none of the resources were locked.  Note also that the
   lockdiscovery property for the Request-URI has been included as
   required.  In this example the lockdiscovery property is empty which
   means that there are no outstanding locks on the resource.

   In this example, the nonce, response, and opaque fields have not been
   calculated in the Authorization request header.

8.11 UNLOCK Method

   The UNLOCK method removes the lock identified by the lock token in
   the Lock-Token request header from the Request-URI, and all other
   resources included in the lock.  If all resources which have been
   locked under the submitted lock token can not be unlocked then the
   UNLOCK request MUST fail.

   Any DAV compliant resource which supports the LOCK method MUST
   support the UNLOCK method.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 51]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


8.11.1 Example - UNLOCK

   >>Request

   UNLOCK /workspace/webdav/info.doc HTTP/1.1
   Host: webdav.sb.aol.com
   Lock-Token: <opaquelocktoken:a515cfa4-5da4-22e1-f5b5-00a0451e6bf7>
   Authorization: Digest username="ejw",
      realm="ejw@webdav.sb.aol.com", nonce="...",
      uri="/workspace/webdav/proposal.doc",
      response="...", opaque="..."

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

   In this example, the lock identified by the lock token
   "opaquelocktoken:a515cfa4-5da4-22e1-f5b5-00a0451e6bf7" is
   successfully removed from the resource
   http://webdav.sb.aol.com/workspace/webdav/info.doc.  If this lock
   included more than just one resource, the lock is removed from all
   resources included in the lock.  The 204 (No Content) status code is
   used instead of 200 (OK) because there is no response entity body.

   In this example, the nonce, response, and opaque fields have not been
   calculated in the Authorization request header.

9  HTTP Headers for Distributed Authoring

9.1 DAV Header

   DAV = "DAV" ":" "1" ["," "2"] ["," 1#extend]

   This header indicates that the resource supports the DAV schema and
   protocol as specified. All DAV compliant resources MUST return the
   DAV header on all OPTIONS responses.

   The value is a list of all compliance classes that the resource
   supports.  Note that above a comma has already been added to the 2.
   This is because a resource can not be level 2 compliant unless it is
   also level 1 compliant. Please refer to section 15 for more details.
   In general, however, support for one compliance class does not entail
   support for any other.

9.2 Depth Header

   Depth = "Depth" ":" ("0" | "1" | "infinity")




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 52]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   The Depth header is used with methods executed on resources which
   could potentially have internal members to indicate whether the
   method is to be applied only to the resource ("Depth: 0"), to the
   resource and its immediate children, ("Depth: 1"), or the resource
   and all its progeny ("Depth: infinity").

   The Depth header is only supported if a method's definition
   explicitly provides for such support.

   The following rules are the default behavior for any method that
   supports the Depth header. A method may override these defaults by
   defining different behavior in its definition.

   Methods which support the Depth header may choose not to support all
   of the header's values and may define, on a case by case basis, the
   behavior of the method if a Depth header is not present. For example,
   the MOVE method only supports "Depth: infinity" and if a Depth header
   is not present will act as if a "Depth: infinity" header had been
   applied.

   Clients MUST NOT rely upon methods executing on members of their
   hierarchies in any particular order or on the execution being atomic
   unless the particular method explicitly provides such guarantees.

   Upon execution, a method with a Depth header will perform as much of
   its assigned task as possible and then return a response specifying
   what it was able to accomplish and what it failed to do.

   So, for example, an attempt to COPY a hierarchy may result in some of
   the members being copied and some not.

   Any headers on a method that has a defined interaction with the Depth
   header MUST be applied to all resources in the scope of the method
   except where alternative behavior is explicitly defined. For example,
   an If-Match header will have its value applied against every resource
   in the method's scope and will cause the method to fail if the header
   fails to match.

   If a resource, source or destination, within the scope of the method
   with a Depth header is locked in such a way as to prevent the
   successful execution of the method, then the lock token for that
   resource MUST be submitted with the request in the If request header.

   The Depth header only specifies the behavior of the method with
   regards to internal children.  If a resource does not have internal
   children then the Depth header MUST be ignored.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 53]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Please note, however, that it is always an error to submit a value
   for the Depth header that is not allowed by the method's definition.
   Thus submitting a "Depth: 1" on a COPY, even if the resource does not
   have internal members, will result in a 400 (Bad Request). The method
   should fail not because the resource doesn't have internal members,
   but because of the illegal value in the header.

9.3 Destination Header

   Destination = "Destination" ":" absoluteURI

   The Destination header specifies the URI which identifies a
   destination resource for methods such as COPY and MOVE, which take
   two URIs as parameters.  Note that the absoluteURI production is
   defined in [RFC2396].

9.4 If Header

   If = "If" ":" ( 1*No-tag-list | 1*Tagged-list)
   No-tag-list = List
   Tagged-list = Resource 1*List
   Resource = Coded-URL
   List = "(" 1*(["Not"](State-token | "[" entity-tag "]")) ")"
   State-token = Coded-URL
   Coded-URL = "<" absoluteURI ">"

   The If header is intended to have similar functionality to the If-
   Match header defined in section 14.25 of [RFC2068].  However the If
   header is intended for use with any URI which represents state
   information, referred to as a state token, about a resource as well
   as ETags.  A typical example of a state token is a lock token, and
   lock tokens are the only state tokens defined in this specification.

   All DAV compliant resources MUST honor the If header.

   The If header's purpose is to describe a series of state lists.  If
   the state of the resource to which the header is applied does not
   match any of the specified state lists then the request MUST fail
   with a 412 (Precondition Failed).  If one of the described state
   lists matches the state of the resource then the request may succeed.

   Note that the absoluteURI production is defined in [RFC2396].









Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 54]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


9.4.1 No-tag-list Production

   The No-tag-list production describes a series of state tokens and
   ETags.  If multiple No-tag-list productions are used then one only
   needs to match the state of the resource for the method to be allowed
   to continue.

   If a method, due to the presence of a Depth or Destination header, is
   applied to multiple resources then the No-tag-list production MUST be
   applied to each resource the method is applied to.

9.4.1.1 Example - No-tag-list If Header

   If: (<locktoken:a-write-lock-token> ["I am an ETag"]) (["I am another
   ETag"])

   The previous header would require that any resources within the scope
   of the method must either be locked with the specified lock token and
   in the state identified by the "I am an ETag" ETag or in the state
   identified by the second ETag "I am another ETag".  To put the matter
   more plainly one can think of the previous If header as being in the
   form (or (and <locktoken:a-write-lock-token> ["I am an ETag"]) (and
   ["I am another ETag"])).

9.4.2 Tagged-list Production

   The tagged-list production scopes a list production.  That is, it
   specifies that the lists following the resource specification only
   apply to the specified resource.  The scope of the resource
   production begins with the list production immediately following the
   resource production and ends with the next resource production, if
   any.

   When the If header is applied to a particular resource, the Tagged-
   list productions MUST be searched to determine if any of the listed
   resources match the operand resource(s) for the current method.  If
   none of the resource productions match the current resource then the
   header MUST be ignored.  If one of the resource productions does
   match the name of the resource under consideration then the list
   productions following the resource production MUST be applied to the
   resource in the manner specified in the previous section.

   The same URI MUST NOT appear more than once in a resource production
   in an If header.







Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 55]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


9.4.2.1 Example - Tagged List If header

   COPY /resource1 HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Destination: http://www.foo.bar/resource2
   If: <http://www.foo.bar/resource1> (<locktoken:a-write-lock-token>
   [W/"A weak ETag"]) (["strong ETag"])
   <http://www.bar.bar/random>(["another strong ETag"])

   In this example http://www.foo.bar/resource1 is being copied to
   http://www.foo.bar/resource2.  When the method is first applied to
   http://www.foo.bar/resource1, resource1 must be in the state
   specified by "(<locktoken:a-write-lock-token> [W/"A weak ETag"])
   (["strong ETag"])", that is, it either must be locked with a lock
   token of "locktoken:a-write-lock-token" and have a weak entity tag
   W/"A weak ETag" or it must have a strong entity tag "strong ETag".

   That is the only success condition since the resource
   http://www.bar.bar/random never has the method applied to it (the
   only other resource listed in the If header) and
   http://www.foo.bar/resource2 is not listed in the If header.

9.4.3 not Production

   Every state token or ETag is either current, and hence describes the
   state of a resource, or is not current, and does not describe the
   state of a resource. The boolean operation of matching a state token
   or ETag to the current state of a resource thus resolves to a true or
   false value.  The not production is used to reverse that value.  The
   scope of the not production is the state-token or entity-tag
   immediately following it.

   If: (Not <locktoken:write1> <locktoken:write2>)

   When submitted with a request, this If header requires that all
   operand resources must not be locked with locktoken:write1 and must
   be locked with locktoken:write2.

9.4.4 Matching Function

   When performing If header processing, the definition of a matching
   state token or entity tag is as follows.

   Matching entity tag: Where the entity tag matches an entity tag
   associated with that resource.

   Matching state token: Where there is an exact match between the state
   token in the If header and any state token on the resource.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 56]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


9.4.5 If Header and Non-DAV Compliant Proxies

   Non-DAV compliant proxies will not honor the If header, since they
   will not understand the If header, and HTTP requires non-understood
   headers to be ignored.  When communicating with HTTP/1.1 proxies, the
   "Cache-Control: no-cache" request header MUST be used so as to
   prevent the proxy from improperly trying to service the request from
   its cache.  When dealing with HTTP/1.0 proxies the "Pragma: no-cache"
   request header MUST be used for the same reason.

9.5 Lock-Token Header

   Lock-Token = "Lock-Token" ":" Coded-URL

   The Lock-Token request header is used with the UNLOCK method to
   identify the lock to be removed.  The lock token in the Lock-Token
   request header MUST identify a lock that contains the resource
   identified by Request-URI as a member.

   The Lock-Token response header is used with the LOCK method to
   indicate the lock token created as a result of a successful LOCK
   request to create a new lock.

9.6 Overwrite Header

   Overwrite = "Overwrite" ":" ("T" | "F")

   The Overwrite header specifies whether the server should overwrite
   the state of a non-null destination resource during a COPY or MOVE.
   A value of "F" states that the server must not perform the COPY or
   MOVE operation if the state of the destination resource is non-null.
   If the overwrite header is not included in a COPY or MOVE request
   then the resource MUST treat the request as if it has an overwrite
   header of value "T". While the Overwrite header appears to duplicate
   the functionality of the If-Match: * header of HTTP/1.1, If-Match
   applies only to the Request-URI, and not to the Destination of a COPY
   or MOVE.

   If a COPY or MOVE is not performed due to the value of the Overwrite
   header, the method MUST fail with a 412 (Precondition Failed) status
   code.

   All DAV compliant resources MUST support the Overwrite header.

9.7 Status-URI Response Header

   The Status-URI response header may be used with the 102 (Processing)
   status code to inform the client as to the status of a method.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 57]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Status-URI = "Status-URI" ":" *(Status-Code Coded-URL) ; Status-Code
   is defined in 6.1.1 of [RFC2068]

   The URIs listed in the header are source resources which have been
   affected by the outstanding method.  The status code indicates the
   resolution of the method on the identified resource.  So, for
   example, if a MOVE method on a collection is outstanding and a 102
   (Processing) response with a Status-URI response header is returned,
   the included URIs will indicate resources that have had move
   attempted on them and what the result was.

9.8 Timeout Request Header

   TimeOut = "Timeout" ":" 1#TimeType
   TimeType = ("Second-" DAVTimeOutVal | "Infinite" | Other)
   DAVTimeOutVal = 1*digit
   Other = "Extend" field-value   ; See section 4.2 of [RFC2068]

   Clients may include Timeout headers in their LOCK requests.  However,
   the server is not required to honor or even consider these requests.
   Clients MUST NOT submit a Timeout request header with any method
   other than a LOCK method.

   A Timeout request header MUST contain at least one TimeType and may
   contain multiple TimeType entries. The purpose of listing multiple
   TimeType entries is to indicate multiple different values and value
   types that are acceptable to the client.  The client lists the
   TimeType entries in order of preference.

   Timeout response values MUST use a Second value, Infinite, or a
   TimeType the client has indicated familiarity with.  The server may
   assume a client is familiar with any TimeType submitted in a Timeout
   header.

   The "Second" TimeType specifies the number of seconds that will
   elapse between granting of the lock at the server, and the automatic
   removal of the lock.  The timeout value for TimeType "Second" MUST
   NOT be greater than 2^32-1.

   The timeout counter SHOULD be restarted any time an owner of the lock
   sends a method to any member of the lock, including unsupported
   methods, or methods which are unsuccessful.  However the lock MUST be
   refreshed if a refresh LOCK method is successfully received.

   If the timeout expires then the lock may be lost.  Specifically, if
   the server wishes to harvest the lock upon time-out, the server
   SHOULD act as if an UNLOCK method was executed by the server on the
   resource using the lock token of the timed-out lock, performed with



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 58]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   its override authority. Thus logs should be updated with the
   disposition of the lock, notifications should be sent, etc., just as
   they would be for an UNLOCK request.

   Servers are advised to pay close attention to the values submitted by
   clients, as they will be indicative of the type of activity the
   client intends to perform.  For example, an applet running in a
   browser may need to lock a resource, but because of the instability
   of the environment within which the applet is running, the applet may
   be turned off without warning.  As a result, the applet is likely to
   ask for a relatively small timeout value so that if the applet dies,
   the lock can be quickly harvested.  However, a document management
   system is likely to ask for an extremely long timeout because its
   user may be planning on going off-line.

   A client MUST NOT assume that just because the time-out has expired
   the lock has been lost.

10 Status Code Extensions to HTTP/1.1

   The following status codes are added to those defined in HTTP/1.1
   [RFC2068].

10.1 102 Processing

   The 102 (Processing) status code is an interim response used to
   inform the client that the server has accepted the complete request,
   but has not yet completed it.  This status code SHOULD only be sent
   when the server has a reasonable expectation that the request will
   take significant time to complete. As guidance, if a method is taking
   longer than 20 seconds (a reasonable, but arbitrary value) to process
   the server SHOULD return a 102 (Processing) response. The server MUST
   send a final response after the request has been completed.

   Methods can potentially take a long period of time to process,
   especially methods that support the Depth header.  In such cases the
   client may time-out the connection while waiting for a response.  To
   prevent this the server may return a 102 (Processing) status code to
   indicate to the client that the server is still processing the
   method.

10.2 207 Multi-Status

   The 207 (Multi-Status) status code provides status for multiple
   independent operations (see section 11 for more information).






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 59]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


10.3 422 Unprocessable Entity

   The 422 (Unprocessable Entity) status code means the server
   understands the content type of the request entity (hence a
   415(Unsupported Media Type) status code is inappropriate), and the
   syntax of the request entity is correct (thus a 400 (Bad Request)
   status code is inappropriate) but was unable to process the contained
   instructions.  For example, this error condition may occur if an XML
   request body contains well-formed (i.e., syntactically correct), but
   semantically erroneous XML instructions.

10.4 423 Locked

   The 423 (Locked) status code means the source or destination resource
   of a method is locked.

10.5 424 Failed Dependency

   The 424 (Failed Dependency) status code means that the method could
   not be performed on the resource because the requested action
   depended on another action and that action failed.  For example, if a
   command in a PROPPATCH method fails then, at minimum, the rest of the
   commands will also fail with 424 (Failed Dependency).

10.6 507 Insufficient Storage

   The 507 (Insufficient Storage) status code means the method could not
   be performed on the resource because the server is unable to store
   the representation needed to successfully complete the request.  This
   condition is considered to be temporary.  If the request which
   received this status code was the result of a user action, the
   request MUST NOT be repeated until it is requested by a separate user
   action.

11 Multi-Status Response

   The default 207 (Multi-Status) response body is a text/xml or
   application/xml HTTP entity that contains a single XML element called
   multistatus, which contains a set of XML elements called response
   which contain 200, 300, 400, and 500 series status codes generated
   during the method invocation.  100 series status codes SHOULD NOT be
   recorded in a response XML element.









Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 60]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12 XML Element Definitions

   In the section below, the final line of each section gives the
   element type declaration using the format defined in [REC-XML]. The
   "Value" field, where present, specifies further restrictions on the
   allowable contents of the XML element using BNF (i.e., to further
   restrict the values of a PCDATA element).

12.1 activelock XML Element

   Name:       activelock
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Describes a lock on a resource.

   <!ELEMENT activelock (lockscope, locktype, depth, owner?, timeout?,
   locktoken?) >

12.1.1 depth XML Element

   Name:       depth
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The value of the Depth header.
   Value:      "0" | "1" | "infinity"

   <!ELEMENT depth (#PCDATA) >

12.1.2 locktoken XML Element

   Name:       locktoken
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The lock token associated with a lock.
   Description: The href contains one or more opaque lock token URIs
   which all refer to the same lock (i.e., the OpaqueLockToken-URI
   production in section 6.4).

   <!ELEMENT locktoken (href+) >

12.1.3 timeout XML Element

   Name:       timeout
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The timeout associated with a lock
   Value:      TimeType ;Defined in section 9.8

   <!ELEMENT timeout (#PCDATA) >






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 61]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12.2 collection XML Element

   Name:       collection
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Identifies the associated resource as a collection. The
   resourcetype property of a collection resource MUST have this value.

   <!ELEMENT collection EMPTY >

12.3 href XML Element

   Name:       href
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Identifies the content of the element as a URI.
   Value:      URI ; See section 3.2.1 of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT href (#PCDATA)>

12.4 link XML Element

   Name:       link
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Identifies the property as a link and contains the source
   and destination of that link.
   Description: The link XML element is used to provide the sources and
   destinations of a link.  The name of the property containing the link
   XML element provides the type of the link.  Link is a multi-valued
   element, so multiple links may be used together to indicate multiple
   links with the same type.  The values in the href XML elements inside
   the src and dst XML elements of the link XML element MUST NOT be
   rejected if they point to resources which do not exist.

   <!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+) >

12.4.1 dst XML Element

   Name:       dst
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Indicates the destination of a link
   Value:      URI

   <!ELEMENT dst (#PCDATA) >

12.4.2 src XML Element

   Name:       src
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Indicates the source of a link.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 62]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Value:      URI

   <!ELEMENT src (#PCDATA) >

12.5 lockentry XML Element

   Name:       lockentry
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Defines the types of locks that can be used with the
   resource.

   <!ELEMENT lockentry (lockscope, locktype) >

12.6 lockinfo XML Element

   Name:       lockinfo
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The lockinfo XML element is used with a LOCK method to
   specify the type of lock the client wishes to have created.

   <!ELEMENT lockinfo (lockscope, locktype, owner?) >

12.7 lockscope XML Element

   Name:       lockscope
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies whether a lock is an exclusive lock, or a
   shared lock.

   <!ELEMENT lockscope (exclusive | shared) >

12.7.1 exclusive XML Element

   Name:       exclusive
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies an exclusive lock

   <!ELEMENT exclusive EMPTY >

12.7.2 shared XML Element

   Name:       shared
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies a shared lock

   <!ELEMENT shared EMPTY >





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 63]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12.8 locktype XML Element

   Name:       locktype
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies the access type of a lock.  At present, this
   specification only defines one lock type, the write lock.

   <!ELEMENT locktype (write) >

12.8.1 write XML Element

   Name:       write
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies a write lock.

   <!ELEMENT write EMPTY >

12.9 multistatus XML Element

   Name:       multistatus
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains multiple response messages.
   Description: The responsedescription at the top level is used to
   provide a general message describing the overarching nature of the
   response.  If this value is available an application may use it
   instead of presenting the individual response descriptions contained
   within the responses.

   <!ELEMENT multistatus (response+, responsedescription?) >

12.9.1 response XML Element

   Name:       response
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Holds a single response describing the effect of a
   method on resource and/or its properties.
   Description: A particular href MUST NOT appear more than once as the
   child of a response XML element under a multistatus XML element.
   This requirement is necessary in order to keep processing costs for a
   response to linear time.  Essentially, this prevents having to search
   in order to group together all the responses by href.  There are,
   however, no requirements regarding ordering based on href values.

   <!ELEMENT response (href, ((href*, status)|(propstat+)),
   responsedescription?) >






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 64]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12.9.1.1  propstat XML Element

   Name:       propstat
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Groups together a prop and status element that is
   associated with a particular href element.
   Description: The propstat XML element MUST contain one prop XML
   element and one status XML element.  The contents of the prop XML
   element MUST only list the names of properties to which the result in
   the status element applies.

   <!ELEMENT propstat (prop, status, responsedescription?) >

12.9.1.2  status XML Element

   Name:       status
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Holds a single HTTP status-line
   Value:      status-line   ;status-line defined in [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT status (#PCDATA) >

12.9.2 responsedescription XML Element

   Name:       responsedescription
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains a message that can be displayed to the user
   explaining the nature of the response.
   Description: This XML element provides information suitable to be
   presented to a user.

   <!ELEMENT responsedescription (#PCDATA) >

12.10 owner XML Element

   Name:       owner
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Provides information about the principal taking out a
   lock.
   Description: The owner XML element provides information sufficient
   for either directly contacting a principal (such as a telephone
   number or Email URI), or for discovering the principal (such as the
   URL of a homepage) who owns a lock.

   <!ELEMENT owner ANY>






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 65]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12.11 prop XML element

   Name:       prop
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains properties related to a resource.
   Description: The prop XML element is a generic container for
   properties defined on resources.  All elements inside a prop XML
   element MUST define properties related to the resource.  No other
   elements may be used inside of a prop element.

   <!ELEMENT prop ANY>

12.12 propertybehavior XML element

   Name:       propertybehavior Namespace:  DAV:  Purpose:    Specifies
   how properties are handled during a COPY or MOVE.
   Description: The propertybehavior XML element specifies how
   properties are handled during a COPY or MOVE.  If this XML element is
   not included in the request body then the server is expected to act
   as defined by the default property handling behavior of the
   associated method.  All WebDAV compliant resources MUST support the
   propertybehavior XML element.

   <!ELEMENT propertybehavior (omit | keepalive) >

12.12.1 keepalive XML element

   Name:       keepalive
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies requirements for the copying/moving of live
   properties.
   Description: If a list of URIs is included as the value of keepalive
   then the named properties MUST be "live" after they are copied
   (moved) to the destination resource of a COPY (or MOVE).  If the
   value "*" is given for the keepalive XML element, this designates
   that all live properties on the source resource MUST be live on the
   destination.  If the requirements specified by the keepalive element
   can not be honored then the method MUST fail with a 412 (Precondition
   Failed).  All DAV compliant resources MUST support the keepalive XML
   element for use with the COPY and MOVE methods.
   Value:      "*" ; #PCDATA value can only be "*"

   <!ELEMENT keepalive (#PCDATA | href+) >








Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 66]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


12.12.2 omit XML element

   Name:       omit
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The omit XML element instructs the server that it should
   use best effort to copy properties but a failure to copy a property
   MUST NOT cause the method to fail.  Description: The default behavior
   for a COPY or MOVE is to copy/move all properties or fail the method.
   In certain circumstances, such as when a server copies a resource
   over another protocol such as FTP, it may not be possible to
   copy/move the properties associated with the resource. Thus any
   attempt to copy/move over FTP would always have to fail because
   properties could not be moved over, even as dead properties.  All DAV
   compliant resources MUST support the omit XML element on COPY/MOVE
   methods.

   <!ELEMENT omit EMPTY >

12.13 propertyupdate XML element

   Name:       propertyupdate
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains a request to alter the properties on a
   resource.
   Description: This XML element is a container for the information
   required to modify the properties on the resource.  This XML element
   is multi-valued.

   <!ELEMENT propertyupdate (remove | set)+ >

12.13.1 remove XML element

   Name:       remove
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Lists the DAV properties to be removed from a resource.
   Description: Remove instructs that the properties specified in prop
   should be removed.  Specifying the removal of a property that does
   not exist is not an error.  All the XML elements in a prop XML
   element inside of a remove XML element MUST be empty, as only the
   names of properties to be removed are required.

   <!ELEMENT remove (prop) >

12.13.2 set XML element

   Name:       set
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Lists the DAV property values to be set for a resource.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 67]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Description: The set XML element MUST contain only a prop XML
   element.  The elements contained by the prop XML element inside the
   set XML element MUST specify the name and value of properties that
   are set on the resource identified by Request-URI.  If a property
   already exists then its value is replaced. Language tagging
   information in the property's value (in the "xml:lang" attribute, if
   present) MUST be persistently stored along with the property, and
   MUST be subsequently retrievable using PROPFIND.

   <!ELEMENT set (prop) >

12.14 propfind XML Element

   Name:       propfind
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies the properties to be returned from a PROPFIND
   method.  Two special elements are specified for use with propfind,
   allprop and propname.  If prop is used inside propfind it MUST only
   contain property names, not values.

   <!ELEMENT propfind (allprop | propname | prop) >

12.14.1 allprop XML Element

   Name:       allprop Namespace:  DAV:  Purpose:    The allprop XML
   element specifies that all property names and values on the resource
   are to be returned.

   <!ELEMENT allprop EMPTY >

12.14.2 propname XML Element

   Name:       propname Namespace:  DAV:  Purpose:    The propname XML
   element specifies that only a list of property names on the resource
   is to be returned.

   <!ELEMENT propname EMPTY >

13 DAV Properties

   For DAV properties, the name of the property is also the same as the
   name of the XML element that contains its value. In the section
   below, the final line of each section gives the element type
   declaration using the format defined in [REC-XML]. The "Value" field,
   where present, specifies further restrictions on the allowable
   contents of the XML element using BNF (i.e., to further restrict the
   values of a PCDATA element).




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 68]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


13.1 creationdate Property

   Name:       creationdate
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Records the time and date the resource was created.
   Value:      date-time ; See Appendix 2
   Description: The creationdate property should be defined on all DAV
   compliant resources.  If present, it contains a timestamp of the
   moment when the resource was created (i.e., the moment it had non-
   null state).

   <!ELEMENT creationdate (#PCDATA) >

13.2 displayname Property

   Name:       displayname
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Provides a name for the resource that is suitable for
   presentation to a user.
   Description: The displayname property should be defined on all DAV
   compliant resources.  If present, the property contains a description
   of the resource that is suitable for presentation to a user.

   <!ELEMENT displayname (#PCDATA) >

13.3 getcontentlanguage Property

   Name:       getcontentlanguage
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains the Content-Language header returned by a GET
   without accept headers
   Description: The getcontentlanguage property MUST be defined on any
   DAV compliant resource that returns the Content-Language header on a
   GET.
   Value:      language-tag   ;language-tag is defined in section 14.13
   of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT getcontentlanguage (#PCDATA) >

13.4 getcontentlength Property

   Name:       getcontentlength
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains the Content-Length header returned by a GET
   without accept headers.
   Description: The getcontentlength property MUST be defined on any
   DAV compliant resource that returns the Content-Length header in
   response to a GET.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 69]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Value:      content-length ; see section 14.14 of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT getcontentlength (#PCDATA) >

13.5 getcontenttype Property

   Name:       getcontenttype
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains the Content-Type header returned by a GET
   without accept headers.
   Description: This getcontenttype property MUST be defined on any DAV
   compliant resource that returns the Content-Type header in response
   to a GET.
   Value:      media-type   ; defined in section 3.7 of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT getcontenttype (#PCDATA) >

13.6 getetag Property

   Name:       getetag
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains the ETag header returned by a GET without
   accept headers.
   Description: The getetag property MUST be defined on any DAV
   compliant resource that returns the Etag header.
   Value:      entity-tag  ; defined in section 3.11 of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT getetag (#PCDATA) >

13.7 getlastmodified Property

   Name:       getlastmodified
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Contains the Last-Modified header returned by a GET
   method without accept headers.
   Description: Note that the last-modified date on a resource may
   reflect changes in any part of the state of the resource, not
   necessarily just a change to the response to the GET method.  For
   example, a change in a property may cause the last-modified date to
   change. The getlastmodified property MUST be defined on any DAV
   compliant resource that returns the Last-Modified header in response
   to a GET.
   Value:      HTTP-date  ; defined in section 3.3.1 of [RFC2068]

   <!ELEMENT getlastmodified (#PCDATA) >






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 70]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


13.8 lockdiscovery Property

   Name:       lockdiscovery
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Describes the active locks on a resource
   Description: The lockdiscovery property returns a listing of who has
   a lock, what type of lock he has, the timeout type and the time
   remaining on the timeout, and the associated lock token.  The server
   is free to withhold any or all of this information if the requesting
   principal does not have sufficient access rights to see the requested
   data.

   <!ELEMENT lockdiscovery (activelock)* >

13.8.1 Example - Retrieving the lockdiscovery Property

   >>Request

   PROPFIND /container/ HTTP/1.1
   Host: www.foo.bar
   Content-Length: xxxx
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D='DAV:'>
     <D:prop><D:lockdiscovery/></D:prop>
   </D:propfind>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D='DAV:'>
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.bar/container/</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop>
                    <D:lockdiscovery>
                         <D:activelock>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                              <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:depth>0</D:depth>
                              <D:owner>Jane Smith</D:owner>
                              <D:timeout>Infinite</D:timeout>
                              <D:locktoken>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 71]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


                                   <D:href>
               opaquelocktoken:f81de2ad-7f3d-a1b2-4f3c-00a0c91a9d76
                                   </D:href>
                              </D:locktoken>
                         </D:activelock>
                    </D:lockdiscovery>
               </D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
   </D:multistatus>

   This resource has a single exclusive write lock on it, with an
   infinite timeout.

13.9 resourcetype Property

   Name:       resourcetype
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    Specifies the nature of the resource.
   Description: The resourcetype property MUST be defined on all DAV
   compliant resources.  The default value is empty.

   <!ELEMENT resourcetype ANY >

13.10 source Property

   Name:       source
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    The destination of the source link identifies the
   resource that contains the unprocessed source of the link's source.
   Description: The source of the link (src) is typically the URI of the
   output resource on which the link is defined, and there is typically
   only one destination (dst) of the link, which is the URI where the
   unprocessed source of the resource may be accessed.  When more than
   one link destination exists, this specification asserts no policy on
   ordering.

   <!ELEMENT source (link)* >

13.10.1 Example - A source Property

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:prop xmlns:D="DAV:" xmlns:F="http://www.foocorp.com/Project/">
     <D:source>
          <D:link>
               <F:projfiles>Source</F:projfiles>
               <D:src>http://foo.bar/program</D:src>



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 72]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


               <D:dst>http://foo.bar/src/main.c</D:dst>
          </D:link>
          <D:link>
               <F:projfiles>Library</F:projfiles>
               <D:src>http://foo.bar/program</D:src>
               <D:dst>http://foo.bar/src/main.lib</D:dst>
          </D:link>
          <D:link>
               <F:projfiles>Makefile</F:projfiles>
               <D:src>http://foo.bar/program</D:src>
               <D:dst>http://foo.bar/src/makefile</D:dst>
          </D:link>
     </D:source>
   </D:prop>

   In this example the resource http://foo.bar/program has a source
   property that contains three links.  Each link contains three
   elements, two of which, src and dst, are part of the DAV schema
   defined in this document, and one which is defined by the schema
   http://www.foocorp.com/project/ (Source, Library, and Makefile).  A
   client which only implements the elements in the DAV spec will not
   understand the foocorp elements and will ignore them, thus seeing the
   expected source and destination links.  An enhanced client may know
   about the foocorp elements and be able to present the user with
   additional information about the links.  This example demonstrates
   the power of XML markup, allowing element values to be enhanced
   without breaking older clients.

13.11 supportedlock Property

   Name:       supportedlock
   Namespace:  DAV:
   Purpose:    To provide a listing of the lock capabilities supported
   by the resource.
   Description: The supportedlock property of a resource returns a
   listing of the combinations of scope and access types which may be
   specified in a lock request on the resource.  Note that the actual
   contents are themselves controlled by access controls so a server is
   not required to provide information the client is not authorized to
   see.

   <!ELEMENT supportedlock (lockentry)* >

13.11.1 Example - Retrieving the supportedlock Property

   >>Request

   PROPFIND  /container/ HTTP/1.1



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 73]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Host: www.foo.bar
   Content-Length: xxxx
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:prop><D:supportedlock/></D:prop>
   </D:propfind>

   >>Response

   HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
   Content-Length: xxxx

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:response>
          <D:href>http://www.foo.bar/container/</D:href>
          <D:propstat>
               <D:prop>
                    <D:supportedlock>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:exclusive/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                         <D:lockentry>
                              <D:lockscope><D:shared/></D:lockscope>
                              <D:locktype><D:write/></D:locktype>
                         </D:lockentry>
                    </D:supportedlock>
               </D:prop>
               <D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
          </D:propstat>
     </D:response>
   </D:multistatus>

14 Instructions for Processing XML in DAV

   All DAV compliant resources MUST ignore any unknown XML element and
   all its children encountered while processing a DAV method that uses
   XML as its command language.

   This restriction also applies to the processing, by clients, of DAV
   property values where unknown XML elements SHOULD be ignored unless
   the property's schema declares otherwise.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 74]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   This restriction does not apply to setting dead DAV properties on the
   server where the server MUST record unknown XML elements.

   Additionally, this restriction does not apply to the use of XML where
   XML happens to be the content type of the entity body, for example,
   when used as the body of a PUT.

   Since XML can be transported as text/xml or application/xml, a DAV
   server MUST accept DAV method requests with XML parameters
   transported as either text/xml or application/xml, and DAV client
   MUST accept XML responses using either text/xml or application/xml.

15 DAV Compliance Classes

   A DAV compliant resource can choose from two classes of compliance.
   A client can discover the compliance classes of a resource by
   executing OPTIONS on the resource, and examining the "DAV" header
   which is returned.

   Since this document describes extensions to the HTTP/1.1 protocol,
   minimally all DAV compliant resources, clients, and proxies MUST be
   compliant with [RFC2068].

   Compliance classes are not necessarily sequential. A resource that is
   class 2 compliant must also be class 1 compliant; but if additional
   compliance classes are defined later, a resource that is class 1, 2,
   and 4 compliant might not be class 3 compliant.  Also note that
   identifiers other than numbers may be used as compliance class
   identifiers.

15.1 Class 1

   A class 1 compliant resource MUST meet all "MUST" requirements in all
   sections of this document.

   Class 1 compliant resources MUST return, at minimum, the value "1" in
   the DAV header on all responses to the OPTIONS method.

15.2 Class 2

   A class 2 compliant resource MUST meet all class 1 requirements and
   support the LOCK method, the supportedlock property, the
   lockdiscovery property, the Time-Out response header and the Lock-
   Token request header.  A class "2" compliant resource SHOULD also
   support the Time-Out request header and the owner XML element.

   Class 2 compliant resources MUST return, at minimum, the values "1"
   and "2" in the DAV header on all responses to the OPTIONS method.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 75]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


16 Internationalization Considerations

   In the realm of internationalization, this specification complies
   with the IETF Character Set Policy [RFC2277]. In this specification,
   human-readable fields can be found either in the value of a property,
   or in an error message returned in a response entity body.  In both
   cases, the human-readable content is encoded using XML, which has
   explicit provisions for character set tagging and encoding, and
   requires that XML processors read XML elements encoded, at minimum,
   using the UTF-8 [UTF-8] encoding of the ISO 10646 multilingual plane.
   XML examples in this specification demonstrate use of the charset
   parameter of the Content-Type header, as defined in [RFC2376], as
   well as the XML "encoding" attribute, which together provide charset
   identification information for MIME and XML processors.

   XML also provides a language tagging capability for specifying the
   language of the contents of a particular XML element.  XML uses
   either IANA registered language tags (see [RFC1766]) or ISO 639
   language tags [ISO-639] in the "xml:lang" attribute of an XML element
   to identify the language of its content and attributes.

   WebDAV applications MUST support the character set tagging, character
   set encoding, and the language tagging functionality of the XML
   specification.  Implementors of WebDAV applications are strongly
   encouraged to read "XML Media Types" [RFC2376] for instruction on
   which MIME media type to use for XML transport, and on use of the
   charset parameter of the Content-Type header.

   Names used within this specification fall into three categories:
   names of protocol elements such as methods and headers, names of XML
   elements, and names of properties.  Naming of protocol elements
   follows the precedent of HTTP, using English names encoded in USASCII
   for methods and headers.  Since these protocol elements are not
   visible to users, and are in fact simply long token identifiers, they
   do not need to support encoding in multiple character sets.
   Similarly, though the names of XML elements used in this
   specification are English names encoded in UTF-8, these names are not
   visible to the user, and hence do not need to support multiple
   character set encodings.

   The name of a property defined on a resource is a URI.  Although some
   applications (e.g., a generic property viewer) will display property
   URIs directly to their users, it is expected that the typical
   application will use a fixed set of properties, and will provide a
   mapping from the property name URI to a human-readable field when
   displaying the property name to a user.  It is only in the case where





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 76]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   the set of properties is not known ahead of time that an application
   need display a property name URI to a user. We recommend that
   applications provide human-readable property names wherever feasible.

   For error reporting, we follow the convention of HTTP/1.1 status
   codes, including with each status code a short, English description
   of the code (e.g., 423 (Locked)).  While the possibility exists that
   a poorly crafted user agent would display this message to a user,
   internationalized applications will ignore this message, and display
   an appropriate message in the user's language and character set.

   Since interoperation of clients and servers does not require locale
   information, this specification does not specify any mechanism for
   transmission of this information.

17 Security Considerations

   This section is provided to detail issues concerning security
   implications of which WebDAV applications need to be aware.

   All of the security considerations of HTTP/1.1 (discussed in
   [RFC2068]) and XML (discussed in [RFC2376]) also apply to WebDAV. In
   addition, the security risks inherent in remote authoring require
   stronger authentication technology, introduce several new privacy
   concerns, and may increase the hazards from poor server design.
   These issues are detailed below.

17.1 Authentication of Clients

   Due to their emphasis on authoring, WebDAV servers need to use
   authentication technology to protect not just access to a network
   resource, but the integrity of the resource as well.  Furthermore,
   the introduction of locking functionality requires support for
   authentication.

   A password sent in the clear over an insecure channel is an
   inadequate means for protecting the accessibility and integrity of a
   resource as the password may be intercepted.  Since Basic
   authentication for HTTP/1.1 performs essentially clear text
   transmission of a password, Basic authentication MUST NOT be used to
   authenticate a WebDAV client to a server unless the connection is
   secure. Furthermore, a WebDAV server MUST NOT send Basic
   authentication credentials in a WWW-Authenticate header unless the
   connection is secure.  Examples of secure connections include a
   Transport Layer Security (TLS) connection employing a strong cipher
   suite with mutual authentication of client and server, or a
   connection over a network which is physically secure, for example, an
   isolated network in a building with restricted access.



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 77]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   WebDAV applications MUST support the Digest authentication scheme
   [RFC2069]. Since Digest authentication verifies that both parties to
   a communication know a shared secret, a password, without having to
   send that secret in the clear, Digest authentication avoids the
   security problems inherent in Basic authentication while providing a
   level of authentication which is useful in a wide range of scenarios.

17.2 Denial of Service

   Denial of service attacks are of special concern to WebDAV servers.
   WebDAV plus HTTP enables denial of service attacks on every part of a
   system's resources.

   The underlying storage can be attacked by PUTting extremely large
   files.

   Asking for recursive operations on large collections can attack
   processing time.

   Making multiple pipelined requests on multiple connections can attack
   network connections.

   WebDAV servers need to be aware of the possibility of a denial of
   service attack at all levels.

17.3 Security through Obscurity

   WebDAV provides, through the PROPFIND method, a mechanism for listing
   the member resources of a collection.  This greatly diminishes the
   effectiveness of security or privacy techniques that rely only on the
   difficulty of discovering the names of network resources.  Users of
   WebDAV servers are encouraged to use access control techniques to
   prevent unwanted access to resources, rather than depending on the
   relative obscurity of their resource names.

17.4 Privacy Issues Connected to Locks

   When submitting a lock request a user agent may also submit an owner
   XML field giving contact information for the person taking out the
   lock (for those cases where a person, rather than a robot, is taking
   out the lock). This contact information is stored in a lockdiscovery
   property on the resource, and can be used by other collaborators to
   begin negotiation over access to the resource.  However, in many
   cases this contact information can be very private, and should not be
   widely disseminated.  Servers SHOULD limit read access to the
   lockdiscovery property as appropriate.  Furthermore, user agents





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 78]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   SHOULD provide control over whether contact information is sent at
   all, and if contact information is sent, control over exactly what
   information is sent.

17.5 Privacy Issues Connected to Properties

   Since property values are typically used to hold information such as
   the author of a document, there is the possibility that privacy
   concerns could arise stemming from widespread access to a resource's
   property data.  To reduce the risk of inadvertent release of private
   information via properties, servers are encouraged to develop access
   control mechanisms that separate read access to the resource body and
   read access to the resource's properties.  This allows a user to
   control the dissemination of their property data without overly
   restricting access to the resource's contents.

17.6 Reduction of Security due to Source Link

   HTTP/1.1 warns against providing read access to script code because
   it may contain sensitive information.  Yet WebDAV, via its source
   link facility, can potentially provide a URI for script resources so
   they may be authored.  For HTTP/1.1, a server could reasonably
   prevent access to source resources due to the predominance of read-
   only access.  WebDAV, with its emphasis on authoring, encourages read
   and write access to source resources, and provides the source link
   facility to identify the source.  This reduces the security benefits
   of eliminating access to source resources.  Users and administrators
   of WebDAV servers should be very cautious when allowing remote
   authoring of scripts, limiting read and write access to the source
   resources to authorized principals.

17.7 Implications of XML External Entities

   XML supports a facility known as "external entities", defined in
   section 4.2.2 of [REC-XML], which instruct an XML processor to
   retrieve and perform an inline include of XML located at a particular
   URI. An external XML entity can be used to append or modify the
   document type declaration (DTD) associated with an XML document.  An
   external XML entity can also be used to include XML within the
   content of an XML document.  For non-validating XML, such as the XML
   used in this specification, including an external XML entity is not
   required by [REC-XML]. However, [REC-XML] does state that an XML
   processor may, at its discretion, include the external XML entity.

   External XML entities have no inherent trustworthiness and are
   subject to all the attacks that are endemic to any HTTP GET request.
   Furthermore, it is possible for an external XML entity to modify the
   DTD, and hence affect the final form of an XML document, in the worst



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 79]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   case significantly modifying its semantics, or exposing the XML
   processor to the security risks discussed in [RFC2376].  Therefore,
   implementers must be aware that external XML entities should be
   treated as untrustworthy.

   There is also the scalability risk that would accompany a widely
   deployed application which made use of external XML entities.  In
   this situation, it is possible that there would be significant
   numbers of requests for one external XML entity, potentially
   overloading any server which fields requests for the resource
   containing the external XML entity.

17.8 Risks Connected with Lock Tokens

   This specification, in section 6.4, requires the use of Universal
   Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) for lock tokens, in order to guarantee
   their uniqueness across space and time.  UUIDs, as defined in [ISO-
   11578], contain a "node" field which "consists of the IEEE address,
   usually the host address.  For systems with multiple IEEE 802 nodes,
   any available node address can be used."  Since a WebDAV server will
   issue many locks over its lifetime, the implication is that it will
   also be publicly exposing its IEEE 802 address.

   There are several risks associated with exposure of IEEE 802
   addresses.  Using the IEEE 802 address:

   * It is possible to track the movement of hardware from subnet to
   subnet.

   * It may be possible to identify the manufacturer of the hardware
   running a WebDAV server.

   * It may be possible to determine the number of each type of computer
   running WebDAV.

   Section 6.4.1 of this specification details an alternate mechanism
   for generating the "node" field of a UUID without using an IEEE 802
   address, which alleviates the risks associated with exposure of IEEE
   802 addresses by using an alternate source of uniqueness.

18 IANA Considerations

   This document defines two namespaces, the namespace of property
   names, and the namespace of WebDAV-specific XML elements used within
   property values.






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 80]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   URIs are used for both names, for several reasons. Assignment of a
   URI does not require a request to a central naming authority, and
   hence allow WebDAV property names and XML elements to be quickly
   defined by any WebDAV user or application.  URIs also provide a
   unique address space, ensuring that the distributed users of WebDAV
   will not have collisions among the property names and XML elements
   they create.

   This specification defines a distinguished set of property names and
   XML elements that are understood by all WebDAV applications.  The
   property names and XML elements in this specification are all derived
   from the base URI DAV: by adding a suffix to this URI, for example,
   DAV:creationdate for the "creationdate" property.

   This specification also defines a URI scheme for the encoding of lock
   tokens, the opaquelocktoken URI scheme described in section 6.4.

   To ensure correct interoperation based on this specification, IANA
   must reserve the URI namespaces starting with "DAV:" and with
   "opaquelocktoken:" for use by this specification, its revisions, and
   related WebDAV specifications.

19 Intellectual Property

   The following notice is copied from RFC 2026 [RFC2026], section 10.4,
   and describes the position of the IETF concerning intellectual
   property claims made against this document.

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use other technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
   has made any effort to identify any such rights.  Information on the
   IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
   standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11.  Copies of
   claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
   licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
   obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
   proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can
   be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF Executive
   Director.




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 81]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


20 Acknowledgements

   A specification such as this thrives on piercing critical review and
   withers from apathetic neglect.  The authors gratefully acknowledge
   the contributions of the following people, whose insights were so
   valuable at every stage of our work.

   Terry Allen, Harald Alvestrand, Jim Amsden, Becky Anderson, Alan
   Babich, Sanford Barr, Dylan Barrell, Bernard Chester, Tim Berners-
   Lee, Dan Connolly, Jim Cunningham, Ron Daniel, Jr., Jim Davis, Keith
   Dawson, Mark Day, Brian Deen, Martin Duerst, David Durand, Lee
   Farrell, Chuck Fay, Wesley Felter, Roy Fielding, Mark Fisher, Alan
   Freier, George Florentine, Jim Gettys, Phill Hallam-Baker, Dennis
   Hamilton, Steve Henning, Mead Himelstein, Alex Hopmann, Andre van der
   Hoek, Ben Laurie, Paul Leach, Ora Lassila, Karen MacArthur, Steven
   Martin, Larry Masinter, Michael Mealling, Keith Moore, Thomas Narten,
   Henrik Nielsen, Kenji Ota, Bob Parker, Glenn Peterson, Jon Radoff,
   Saveen Reddy, Henry Sanders, Christopher Seiwald, Judith Slein, Mike
   Spreitzer, Einar Stefferud, Greg Stein, Ralph Swick, Kenji Takahashi,
   Richard N. Taylor, Robert Thau, John Turner, Sankar Virdhagriswaran,
   Fabio Vitali, Gregory Woodhouse, and Lauren Wood.

   Two from this list deserve special mention.  The contributions by
   Larry Masinter have been invaluable, both in helping the formation of
   the working group and in patiently coaching the authors along the
   way.  In so many ways he has set high standards we have toiled to
   meet. The contributions of Judith Slein in clarifying the
   requirements, and in patiently reviewing draft after draft, both
   improved this specification and expanded our minds on document
   management.

   We would also like to thank John Turner for developing the XML DTD.

21 References

21.1 Normative References

   [RFC1766]       Alvestrand, H., "Tags for the Identification of
                   Languages", RFC 1766, March 1995.

   [RFC2277]       Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and
                   Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, January 1998.

   [RFC2119]       Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
                   Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 82]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   [RFC2396]       Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter,
                   "Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax",
                   RFC 2396, August 1998.

   [REC-XML]       T. Bray, J. Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen,
                   "Extensible Markup Language (XML)." World Wide Web
                   Consortium Recommendation REC-xml-19980210.
                   http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210.

   [REC-XML-NAMES] T. Bray, D. Hollander, A. Layman, "Namespaces in
                   XML". World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
                   xml-names-19990114.  http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-
                   xml-names-19990114/

   [RFC2069]       Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Leach,
                   P, Luotonen, A., Sink, E. and L. Stewart, "An
                   Extension to HTTP :  Digest Access Authentication",
                   RFC 2069, January 1997.

   [RFC2068]       Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H. and
                   T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol --
                   HTTP/1.1", RFC 2068, January 1997.

   [ISO-639]       ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
                   ISO 639:1988. "Code for the representation of names
                   of languages."

   [ISO-8601]      ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
                   ISO 8601:1988. "Data elements and interchange formats
                   - Information interchange - Representation of dates
                   and times."

   [ISO-11578]     ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
                   ISO/IEC 11578:1996. "Information technology - Open
                   Systems Interconnection - Remote Procedure Call
                   (RPC)"

   [RFC2141]       Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.

   [UTF-8]         Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of
                   Unicode and ISO 10646", RFC 2279, January 1998.

21.2 Informational References

   [RFC2026]  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process - Revision
              3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.





Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 83]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   [RFC1807]  Lasher, R. and D. Cohen, "A Format for Bibliographic
              Records", RFC 1807, June 1995.

   [WF]       C. Lagoze, "The Warwick Framework: A Container
              Architecture for Diverse Sets of Metadata", D-Lib
              Magazine, July/August 1996.
              http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july96/lagoze/07lagoze.html

   [USMARC]   Network Development and MARC Standards, Office, ed. 1994.
              "USMARC Format for Bibliographic Data", 1994. Washington,
              DC: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress.

   [REC-PICS] J. Miller, T. Krauskopf, P. Resnick, W. Treese, "PICS
              Label Distribution Label Syntax and Communication
              Protocols" Version 1.1, World Wide Web Consortium
              Recommendation REC-PICS-labels-961031.
              http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/REC-PICS-labels-961031.html.

   [RFC2291]  Slein, J., Vitali, F., Whitehead, E. and D. Durand,
              "Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning
              Protocol for the World Wide Web", RFC 2291, February 1998.

   [RFC2413]  Weibel, S.,  Kunze, J., Lagoze, C. and M. Wolf, "Dublin
              Core Metadata for Resource Discovery", RFC 2413, September
              1998.

   [RFC2376]  Whitehead, E. and M. Murata, "XML Media Types", RFC 2376,
              July 1998.

22 Authors' Addresses

   Y. Y. Goland
   Microsoft Corporation
   One Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA 98052-6399

   EMail: yarong@microsoft.com


   E. J. Whitehead, Jr.
   Dept. Of Information and Computer Science
   University of California, Irvine
   Irvine, CA 92697-3425

   EMail: ejw@ics.uci.edu






Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 84]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   A. Faizi
   Netscape
   685 East Middlefield Road
   Mountain View, CA 94043

   EMail: asad@netscape.com


   S. R. Carter
   Novell
   1555 N. Technology Way
   M/S ORM F111
   Orem, UT 84097-2399

   EMail: srcarter@novell.com


   D. Jensen
   Novell
   1555 N. Technology Way
   M/S ORM F111
   Orem, UT 84097-2399

   EMail: dcjensen@novell.com



























Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 85]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


23 Appendices

23.1 Appendix 1 - WebDAV Document Type Definition

   This section provides a document type definition, following the rules
   in [REC-XML], for the XML elements used in the protocol stream and in
   the values of properties. It collects the element definitions given
   in sections 12 and 13.

   <!DOCTYPE webdav-1.0 [

   <!--============ XML Elements from Section 12 ==================-->

   <!ELEMENT activelock (lockscope, locktype, depth, owner?, timeout?,
   locktoken?) >

   <!ELEMENT lockentry (lockscope, locktype) >
   <!ELEMENT lockinfo (lockscope, locktype, owner?) >

   <!ELEMENT locktype (write) >
   <!ELEMENT write EMPTY >

   <!ELEMENT lockscope (exclusive | shared) >
   <!ELEMENT exclusive EMPTY >
   <!ELEMENT shared EMPTY >

   <!ELEMENT depth (#PCDATA) >

   <!ELEMENT owner ANY >

   <!ELEMENT timeout (#PCDATA) >

   <!ELEMENT locktoken (href+) >

   <!ELEMENT href (#PCDATA) >

   <!ELEMENT link (src+, dst+) >
   <!ELEMENT dst (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT src (#PCDATA) >

   <!ELEMENT multistatus (response+, responsedescription?) >

   <!ELEMENT response (href, ((href*, status)|(propstat+)),
   responsedescription?) >
   <!ELEMENT status (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT propstat (prop, status, responsedescription?) >
   <!ELEMENT responsedescription (#PCDATA) >




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 86]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   <!ELEMENT prop ANY >

   <!ELEMENT propertybehavior (omit | keepalive) >
   <!ELEMENT omit EMPTY >

   <!ELEMENT keepalive (#PCDATA | href+) >

   <!ELEMENT propertyupdate (remove | set)+ >
   <!ELEMENT remove (prop) >
   <!ELEMENT set (prop) >

   <!ELEMENT propfind (allprop | propname | prop) >
   <!ELEMENT allprop EMPTY >
   <!ELEMENT propname EMPTY >

   <!ELEMENT collection EMPTY >

   <!--=========== Property Elements from Section 13 ===============-->
   <!ELEMENT creationdate (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT displayname (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT getcontentlanguage (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT getcontentlength (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT getcontenttype (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT getetag (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT getlastmodified (#PCDATA) >
   <!ELEMENT lockdiscovery (activelock)* >
   <!ELEMENT resourcetype ANY >
   <!ELEMENT source (link)* >
   <!ELEMENT supportedlock (lockentry)* >
   ]>





















Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 87]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


23.2 Appendix 2 - ISO 8601 Date and Time Profile

   The creationdate property specifies the use of the ISO 8601 date
   format [ISO-8601].  This section defines a profile of the ISO 8601
   date format for use with this specification.  This profile is quoted
   from an Internet-Draft by Chris Newman, and is mentioned here to
   properly attribute his work.

   date-time       = full-date "T" full-time

   full-date       = date-fullyear "-" date-month "-" date-mday
   full-time       = partial-time time-offset

   date-fullyear   = 4DIGIT
   date-month      = 2DIGIT  ; 01-12
   date-mday       = 2DIGIT  ; 01-28, 01-29, 01-30, 01-31 based on
   month/year
   time-hour       = 2DIGIT  ; 00-23
   time-minute     = 2DIGIT  ; 00-59
   time-second     = 2DIGIT  ; 00-59, 00-60 based on leap second rules
   time-secfrac    = "." 1*DIGIT
   time-numoffset  = ("+" / "-") time-hour ":" time-minute
   time-offset     = "Z" / time-numoffset

   partial-time    = time-hour ":" time-minute ":" time-second
                    [time-secfrac]

   Numeric offsets are calculated as local time minus UTC (Coordinated
   Universal Time).  So the equivalent time in UTC can be determined by
   subtracting the offset from the local time.  For example, 18:50:00-
   04:00 is the same time as 22:58:00Z.

   If the time in UTC is known, but the offset to local time is unknown,
   this can be represented with an offset of "-00:00".  This differs
   from an offset of "Z" which implies that UTC is the preferred
   reference point for the specified time.















Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 88]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


23.3 Appendix 3 - Notes on Processing XML Elements

23.3.1 Notes on Empty XML Elements

   XML supports two mechanisms for indicating that an XML element does
   not have any content.  The first is to declare an XML element of the
   form <A></A>.  The second is to declare an XML element of the form
   <A/>.  The two XML elements are semantically identical.

   It is a violation of the XML specification to use the <A></A> form if
   the associated DTD declares the element to be EMPTY (e.g., <!ELEMENT
   A EMPTY>).  If such a statement is included, then the empty element
   format, <A/> must be used.  If the element is not declared to be
   EMPTY, then either form <A></A> or <A/> may be used for empty
   elements.

   23.3.2 Notes on Illegal XML Processing

   XML is a flexible data format that makes it easy to submit data that
   appears legal but in fact is not.  The philosophy of "Be flexible in
   what you accept and strict in what you send" still applies, but it
   must not be applied inappropriately.  XML is extremely flexible in
   dealing with issues of white space, element ordering, inserting new
   elements, etc.  This flexibility does not require extension,
   especially not in the area of the meaning of elements.

   There is no kindness in accepting illegal combinations of XML
   elements.  At best it will cause an unwanted result and at worst it
   can cause real damage.

23.3.2.1  Example - XML Syntax Error

   The following request body for a PROPFIND method is illegal.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
     <D:allprop/>
     <D:propname/>
   </D:propfind>

   The definition of the propfind element only allows for the allprop or
   the propname element, not both.  Thus the above is an error and must
   be responded to with a 400 (Bad Request).








Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 89]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   Imagine, however, that a server wanted to be "kind" and decided to
   pick the allprop element as the true element and respond to it.  A
   client running over a bandwidth limited line who intended to execute
   a propname would be in for a big surprise if the server treated the
   command as an allprop.

   Additionally, if a server were lenient and decided to reply to this
   request, the results would vary randomly from server to server, with
   some servers executing the allprop directive, and others executing
   the propname directive. This reduces interoperability rather than
   increasing it.

23.3.2.2  Example - Unknown XML Element

   The previous example was illegal because it contained two elements
   that were explicitly banned from appearing together in the propfind
   element.  However, XML is an extensible language, so one can imagine
   new elements being defined for use with propfind.  Below is the
   request body of a PROPFIND and, like the previous example, must be
   rejected with a 400 (Bad Request) by a server that does not
   understand the expired-props element.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:"
   xmlns:E="http://www.foo.bar/standards/props/">
     <E:expired-props/>
   </D:propfind>

   To understand why a 400 (Bad Request) is returned let us look at the
   request body as the server unfamiliar with expired-props sees it.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:"
               xmlns:E="http://www.foo.bar/standards/props/">
   </D:propfind>

   As the server does not understand the expired-props element,
   according to the WebDAV-specific XML processing rules specified in
   section 14, it must ignore it.  Thus the server sees an empty
   propfind, which by the definition of the propfind element is illegal.

   Please note that had the extension been additive it would not
   necessarily have resulted in a 400 (Bad Request).  For example,
   imagine the following request body for a PROPFIND:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
   <D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:"
               xmlns:E="http://www.foo.bar/standards/props/">



Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 90]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


     <D:propname/>
     <E:leave-out>*boss*</E:leave-out>
   </D:propfind>

   The previous example contains the fictitious element leave-out. Its
   purpose is to prevent the return of any property whose name matches
   the submitted pattern.  If the previous example were submitted to a
   server unfamiliar with leave-out, the only result would be that the
   leave-out element would be ignored and a propname would be executed.










































Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 91]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


23.4 Appendix 4 -- XML Namespaces for WebDAV

23.4.1 Introduction

   All DAV compliant systems MUST support the XML namespace extensions
   as specified in [REC-XML-NAMES].

23.4.2 Meaning of Qualified Names

   [Note to the reader: This section does not appear in [REC-XML-NAMES],
   but is necessary to avoid ambiguity for WebDAV XML processors.]

   WebDAV compliant XML processors MUST interpret a qualified name as a
   URI constructed by appending the LocalPart to the namespace name URI.

   Example

   <del:glider xmlns:del="http://www.del.jensen.org/">
     <del:glidername>
          Johnny Updraft
     </del:glidername>
     <del:glideraccidents/>
   </del:glider>

   In this example, the qualified element name "del:glider" is
   interpreted as the URL "http://www.del.jensen.org/glider".

   <bar:glider xmlns:del="http://www.del.jensen.org/">
     <bar:glidername>
          Johnny Updraft
     </bar:glidername>
     <bar:glideraccidents/>
   </bar:glider>

   Even though this example is syntactically different from the previous
   example, it is semantically identical.  Each instance of the
   namespace name "bar" is replaced with "http://www.del.jensen.org/"
   and then appended to the local name for each element tag.  The
   resulting tag names in this example are exactly the same as for the
   previous example.

   <foo:r xmlns:foo="http://www.del.jensen.org/glide">
     <foo:rname>
          Johnny Updraft
     </foo:rname>
     <foo:raccidents/>
   </foo:r>




Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 92]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


   This example is semantically identical to the two previous ones.
   Each instance of the namespace name "foo" is replaced with
   "http://www.del.jensen.org/glide" which is then appended to the local
   name for each element tag, the resulting tag names are identical to
   those in the previous examples.














































Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 93]


RFC 2518                         WEBDAV                    February 1999


24.  Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
   and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
   kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
   Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
   developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
   copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
   followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
   English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
   TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
   BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
   HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
























Goland, et al.              Standards Track                    [Page 94]