DAV / WebDAV

HashBackup supports WebDAV as a backup destination. Selective download allows HB to download only the parts of files that are needed for an operation, saving time, bandwidth, and perhaps download costs.

Examples for TransIP, 4shared, Cloudme, Box, and Hidrive are at the bottom.

DAV dest.conf Keywords

type (required)

Either webdav or dav

userid and password (required)

These are what you would use for the Name and Password prompt when connecting to the WebDAV server.

secure

If present, https (secure HTTP or HTTP over SSL) will be used instead of regular http. This usually makes data transfer slightly slower. Regular http is http:// while secure http is https://

Some DAV servers require the secure keyword; for most servers it is optional. If you do NOT use the secure keyword, your connection can theoretically be intercepted to reveal your userid and password, though this is rather unlikely. If your userid and password is intercepted, an attacker could overwrite or delete your backup data, but they cannot read your backup data or cause you to restore incorrect data because that requires your backup key and the backup key is never transmitted.

host

Specifies the WebDAV host by:

Sometimes the WebDAV endpoint is given as something like:

HashBackup tries to handle this correctly, but if you have problems, try using a simple host name here and adding the rest to the dir keyword.

port (optional)

The default port is 80 for http (not secure), or port 443 for https (secure). It is appended with a colon to the host keyword.

dir

If present, the value is appended after the host and port values to construct the DAV server access path. For example, if the WebDAV path is:

these keywords would be used:

The dir keyword can be used to specify parts of the WebDAV path that already exist when your account is created. Some WebDav servers like 4shared do not have anything after the host and port number. In that case, the dir keyword should be omitted.

subdir

This keyword is used to subdivide your remote space, similar to the way the dir keyword works on other destinations. For example, you may have 2 computers abc and def to backup, and need to keep their backups separate. To do this, use the subdir keyword:

HB will create a new directory or folder if it doesn’t already exist.

maxsize

Many WebDAV services have a free plan that limits the size of files that can be uploaded. These limits won’t work for mp3 files for example, encouraging users to switch to a paid plan. But for HB, the file size limit is fine. You must specify the file size limit with the maxsize keyword to ensure that HB doesn’t send files that are too big. For best efficiency it is a good idea to set arc-size-limit with hb config to a value 5MB lower than the maximum file size. If the maximum file size is 150MB, maxsize should be 150MB and arc-size-limit should be 140-145MB.

WebDAV Services Tested With HB

In Nov 2016, a small identical backup took:

WebDAV dest.conf Examples

4shared.com - 15GB free for 6 months, 2GB max file size

TransIP / StackStorage

Cloudme.com - 3GB free, 150MB max file size

HiDrive.com - 5GB free, 2GB max file size