Set Up WebDAV for iCal Sharing on ubuntu 8.04

matt — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:14:20 +0000

Enabling WebDAV for iCal publishing/sharing is fairly straightforward:

0. Install apache2 (if it’s not already installed):

sudo apt-get install apache2

1. Create a WebDAV directory in your DocumentRoot with the proper permissions:

mkdir -p /var/www/webdav
chmod -R 777 /var/www/webdav

2. Edit Apache2′s dav_fs.conf file:

cd /etc/apache2/mods-available
sudo vi dav_fs.conf

DAVLockDB /var/lock/apache2/DAVLock

DAV On
DAVMinTimeout 600
DAVDepthInfinity On

AllowOverride AuthConfig
AuthName “DAV Restricted”
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htaccess

Require valid-user

3. Create symlinks to the proper DAV module files:
(Some of these will already exist. Leave them alone.)

cd ../mods-enabled
sudo ln -s ../mods-available/dav.load
sudo ln -s ../mods-available/dav_fs.conf
sudo ln -s ../mods-available/dav_fs.load

4. Create the ‘AuthUserFile’ indicated in step 2:

sudo htpasswd -m -c /etc/httpd/.htaccess webcal

5. Restart apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

6. Publish your iCal!

Your url for publishing should now look like http://mywebhost/webdav/iCal/. Enjoy!

Based on a guide for Fedora at millan.info.

Command Line Upgrade to 8.04 Hardy Heron

matt — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:58:52 +0000

Ubuntu 8.04 is the second LTS release of the incredibly popular Linux distro. Inspired, I did a fresh install of my desktop at work and found the process smooth and about as simple as an XP install, (though admittedly about 10 minutes faster!), and am quite happy with the results.

Then, I thought it might be fun to see if my svn box in the basement would survive a command-line upgrade again (it worked for 7.04 to 7.10), so why not?

The process is fairly straightforward. As root (or via sudo):

sed -e 's/gutsy/hardy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
... wait ...
shutdown -r now

During my install this morning, and the corresponding install of several packages not included by default, I found that the default repository [us.archive.ubuntu.com] is really slow right now. Synaptic Package Manager has this nifty "find the best mirror" tool, and lo and behold, the best option for me is in Switzerland [mirror.switch.ch], so rather than just replace 'gutsy' with 'hardy', I updated my sources.list to match the fresh one at work.

Then I saw this:

947 upgraded, 194 newly installed, 67 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 763MB of archives.
After unpacking 473MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Well, yeah, of course... but wow, that's some update! Undaunted, I pressed on. Sure enough, it really was that simple. The upgrade on my Dual-PIII 667 (yeah, that's right, PIII baby!) workstation took just over 4 hours to complete, according to my history, so not too shabby.

Grab ubuntu 8.04 directly from the ubuntu.com web site, or from one of many mirrors.

Matt Shelton » ubuntu

Set Up WebDAV for iCal Sharing on ubuntu 8.04

Command Line Upgrade to 8.04 Hardy Heron