How to install the davfs file system in 2.15CE?

[mlamelas]

I have not been able to get the davfs filesystem installed in Puppy. I am attempting it on 2.15.

I have undebed the davfs2.conf file, and when I type mount.davfs at a terminal, I get all of the options for the command. When I try to mount, however, I get error messages and it looks like it is trying to use the nfs mount rather than the davfs mount even though I have specified davfs with the -t flag. I have tried creating entries in fstab but that has not worked either.

I have been able to connect to the remote directory using the Cadaver command line program. The problem seems to be with the mount command.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks,

Mel

[sunburnt]

Hi mlamelas; Q... what's davfs, a file system it seems, what's it do different?

Suggestion: Try using "mount-FULL" as "mount" is the BusyBox hobbled one.

[mlamelas]

Hi sunburnt,

Many thanks for the help. The mount-FULL command worked. davfs is a file system to mount remote directories over the web if the host is running a davserver. I want to be able to carry Puppy in a pen drive and be able to access my files from wherever I am, without being limited by the size of the pen drive. Now I can mount the dav directory and read and write to that directory as long as I have an internet connection.

Best regards,

Mel

[sunburnt]

mlamelas; Could you outline the files & setup for davfs?
It sounds like local network shares except it's over the web.

This goes along with an idea I'm working on for web booting Puppy.
A minimal vmlinuz & initrd.gz (~ 2-3 MB) needs to be PXE style booted,
then the Puppy Save & SFS files are mounted & unioned from the davfs share.
So davfs isn't just storage but becomes an integral part of the Puppy OS.

[mlamelas]

Hi sunburnt,

Attached are the files I used to get davfs running on my system. Make sure you undeb the 3 deb files in the top level directory "/" so that the files end up in the right place. the sshfs.tar.gz file can be installed with the petget wizard.

Configuration items:

In the /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf file that is installed by the deb package, add the following at the end:

########################
#Puppy Settings
kernel_fs fuse
backup_dir /root/.lost+found
cache_dir /root/.davfs2/cache
cache_size 20
ask_auth 0
########################
The backup and cache directories need to be created.

The secrets file in the /etc/davfs2 folder needs to be owned by root, i.e., chown root:root /etc/davfs2/secrets and be accessible only by root
chmod 600 /etc/davfs2/secrets

The sticky bit needs to be set on the /var/run/mount.davfs folder. Make sure it is owned by root.

Make the following entry in fstab:

http://localhost:2667 /root/Remotes/S3 davfs noauto,noaskauth,rw 0 0

Replace the web address of your server for my http entry, and your mountpoint for mine.

To mount the remote directory, then:

mount-FULL /root/Remotes/S3 [or wherever your mount point is]

Now that I know my problem was not using mount-FULL, I may try to use the /var/cache directory and /lost+found directory in / rather than in /root. In Kubuntu, I had permissions problems and got it to work by putting them in my home directory.

I don't know if Puppy saves the contents of the /var/cache directory in the pupsave, so there could be some space savings in putting it there.

For a dav server, I have been using Amazon's S3 service (US$0.20 per month per gig for storage, plus US$0.20 per gig transfer), connecting with JungleDisk (open source) that creates the dav server locally). Any dav server will do.

Best of luck.

Mel

[sunburnt]

Thanks mlamelas; I'll look at all you've spoken of, got your file.

Puppy's Save file is at /, so any file or dir. changes anywhere are saved.

Warning: Puppy may do odd things when mount points aren't in /mnt
LinNeighborhood potentially has a problem with it when Puppy shuts down.
It's probably okay, but I avoid MntPts any place else just to be safe.

[mlamelas]

Hi sunburnt,

Thanks for the heads up on the mount location. I will modify my setup.

Best regards,

Mel