webdav

A WebDAV server component for ESP-IDF, built on esp_http_server. It exposes a mounted VFS directory (LittleFS, SPIFFS, FATFS, ...) as a WebDAV share, so it can be mounted as a network drive on macOS (Finder, Mountain Duck, Cyberduck), Windows (Explorer), or Linux (GVfs/davfs2).

Features

• GET / HEAD — download files, browse directories (serves a directory's index.html if present, otherwise renders a plain HTML index — for a regular web browser; WebDAV clients list directories via PROPFIND instead and are unaffected either way)
• PUT — upload/overwrite files, streamed to flash in chunks (no whole-file buffering)
• DELETE — recursive delete of files and directories
• MKCOL — create directories
• MOVE / COPY — rename/move and copy, including recursive directory copies and Depth/Overwrite header handling
• PROPFIND — directory listing metadata (Depth: 0, 1, infinity), streamed so large directory trees don't need to fit in RAM at once
• PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK — enough of RFC 4918's locking dance for clients that insist on it before they'll write a file; not a real lock manager (see Limitations)
• Path sanitization against directory traversal (.. is rejected outright)
• Optional read-only mode

Requirements

• ESP-IDF >= 5.0
• A VFS-mounted filesystem to serve (LittleFS via joltwallet/littlefs is what the example uses; SPIFFS/FATFS work too since this component only talks to the mount point through standard POSIX file calls)

Usage

Add it as a dependency via the ESP Component Registry:

idf.py add-dependency "erikmeinders/webdav^0.1.0"

or add it to your project's idf_component.yml directly:

dependencies:
  erikmeinders/webdav: "^0.1.0"

For local development against an unpublished/modified copy, point EXTRA_COMPONENT_DIRS at a checkout of this repo instead, or copy it into your project's components/ directory.

Then:

#include "esp_webdav.h"

esp_webdav_config_t config = ESP_WEBDAV_CONFIG_DEFAULT();
config.root_path = "/littlefs";   // must already be mounted
// config.read_only = true;       // optional: expose for download only
// config.server_port = 8080;     // optional: default is 80

esp_webdav_handle_t webdav;
ESP_ERROR_CHECK(esp_webdav_start(&config, &webdav));

// ... later, if needed:
// esp_webdav_stop(webdav);

See include/esp_webdav.h for the full config struct and examples/littlefs_webdav for a complete, flashable project (Wi-Fi + LittleFS

• mDNS + WebDAV).

Configuration (Kconfig)

Run idf.py menuconfig → ESP WebDAV Server to adjust:

• ESP_WEBDAV_MAX_PATH_LEN — stack buffer size for resolved filesystem paths (default 600)
• ESP_WEBDAV_IO_BUF_SIZE — chunk size for file transfers (default 4096)
• ESP_WEBDAV_ALLOW_DEPTH_INFINITY — whether PROPFIND may recurse an entire subtree in one request (default on)

Limitations

• No authentication. Anyone who can reach the device on the network can read and write its filesystem. Put it behind a VPN or a network you control; don't expose it to the internet as-is.
• No TLS. Plain HTTP only (esp_http_server, not esp_https_server).
• LOCK/UNLOCK don't enforce anything. Every LOCK request succeeds and hands back a token; there's no server-side lock table serializing access. This is normally fine for a device with one or a handful of trusted clients, but two clients editing the same file at once will race.
• PROPPATCH always fails. There's nowhere on a plain filesystem to durably store arbitrary WebDAV dead properties, so custom property writes are rejected (403) rather than silently discarded on next boot.
• PROPFIND ignores the requested property list and always returns the standard set (displayname, resourcetype, getcontentlength, getcontenttype, getetag, creationdate, getlastmodified). Extra properties in a response are harmless per RFC 4918 and every WebDAV client this was tested against (Finder, Mountain Duck, Cyberduck) is fine with it.
• Designed for a handful of concurrent clients on an embedded device, not as a general-purpose file server — there's no byte-range GET support, no chunked-PUT support (requires Content-Length), and directory listings are not paginated.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.