WebDAV on Linux

If you'd rather access the RDMS directly from your file system instead of connecting to it remotely, it is also possible to mount a WebDAV share under Linux to access the RDMS from your machine. The most generic method to do so is to use the mount command via the command line interface. In order for this action to work, the davfs2 package has to be installed on your machine. As the installer for this package might vary based on your Linux distro, please check on what version of Linux your operating system is based on.

On Debian, Ubuntu and other Ubuntu-based Linux distros, this can be installed via the APT package managing utility:

$ sudo apt-get davfs2

Alternatively, on Linux distros that use RPM as their package manager (e.g. Fedora), davfs2 can be installed via:

$ yum install davfs2

or

$ dnf install davfs2

Additionally, you need to have an empty directory on the local Linux machine to use as a mount point. You can create an empty directory called rdms_webdav in your home directory by typing and running the following command in your terminal:

$ mkdir ~/rdms_webdav/

You can then make the RDMS accessible at this mount point by running:

$ sudo mount -t davfs https://webdav.data.rug.nl ~/rdms_webdav/ 

WebDAV will then prompt you to provide your login credentials to connect to the RDMS. After you enter your RDMS username (UG email address) and associated password, the RDMS storage becomes available at ~/rdms_webdav/.

Once you are done and wish to unmount the WebDAV mount of the RDMS via the terminal, simply run:

$ sudo umount ~/rdms_webdav/ 

Different distros of Linux come with different desktop environments and also different file managers which can be used to easily mount network shares. In the following paragraph, you will read about how to mount the RDMS via WebDAV for the three file managers GNOME Files, Dolphin and Thunar.

If you are unsure about the standard file manager on your Linux system, you can display this information by running the following command in the terminal:

$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory

The standard file manager of the GNOME desktop environment is GNOME Files, formerly known as Nautilus. Open the file manager and select Other locations. Input davs://webdav.data.rug.nl as the server address and press Connect.

After entering your username (your UG mail in lowercase) and password, the RDMS home directory and its subdirectories become available via the GNOME Files file manager as webdav.data.rug.nl.

The standard file manager of the KDE desktop environment is called Dolphin. To connect to the RDMS through WebDAV, open the Dolphin file manager, then select Network to specify a remote network location. In the field for the remote address, type webdavs://webdav.data.rug.nl and hit Enter. You will be asked for your username (your UG mail in lowercase) and password, and after connecting to the WebDAV address, the RDMS becomes available in your file browser.

The standard file manager of the Xfce desktop environment is called Thunar. To connect to the RDMS through WebDAV, open the Thunar file manager and select Browse Network. Enter webdavs://webdav.data.rug.nl in the address bar of the newly opened window and hit Enter. You will be asked for your username (your UG mail in lowercase) and password, and after connecting to the WebDAV address, the RDMS becomes available in your file browser.