Intro
Just because I document it here in this space doesn’t mean it’s best practice or even a good idea. Such is the case today as I document a BAD IDEA – how to get WebDav working to your Windows 7 PC over HTTP instead of HTTPS. This might be appropriate only if WebDav server and client are both on the same very private Intranet.
WebDAV stands for Web-Based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, by the way.
The details
This comes straight from Microsoft. They just don’t make it clear that these steps apply to this case of trying to get WebDAV working over HTTP.
Windows 7 by default only allows for Webdav connections across HTTPS protocol. There is a work around. In order for you to connect to our WebDav directories you will need to make the following registry change:
To enable Basic authentication on the client computer, follow these steps:
1) Click Start , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit.exe in the Programs list.
2) Locate and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
3) Double-click the BasicAuthLevel registry key.
4) In the Value data box, type 2, and then click OK.
5) Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.
Why this is a bad idea
Now that we’ve shown how to do it, let’s explain why you shouldn’t! If you use basic authentication over HTTP your password is not encrypted, it is merely encoded. It is trivial for anyone listening in – you know who you are, NSA! – to decode that password.
Conclusion
I’ve documented it before trying it! That’s always dangerous, but this blog makes for such a convenient knowledge base that I felt that was the most important first step.
I will update this to indicate whether or not I actually got it to work.