DoIT Streaming Media Knowledgebase

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Streaming Media - WebDAV Access with Macintosh Clients to DoIT Streaming Servers

Streaming Server user access via webDAV may cause unexpected authentication issues, even though the username and password are correct. This is caused by Macintosh computers trying to write special files to the servers that conflict with server security settings. Changing a preference on the Macintosh client will fix that behavior

https://mediastreamer2.doit.wisc.edu/winmedia
https://mediastreamer4.doit.wisc.edu/qtss
https://mediastreamer.doit.wisc.edu/webstreamer

These are the webDAV base folders for our Windows Media and Quicktime Streaming Server servers. If you experience invalid password responses and repeated prompts for your username and password, you are affected by this problem. There should only be one prompt for username and password.

There are multiple solutions for this problem. If this is the only server where you have ever experienced this problem, use the following approach: Instead of connecting to the global server folders as outlined above, just add your account folder to the URL before you connect. This will put you directly into your publishing directory without any additional password prompts.

The URLs you enter to connect should look like this:

https://mediastreamer2.doit.wisc.edu/winmedia/[account name]
https://mediastreamer4.doit.wisc.edu/qtss/[account name]
https://mediastreamer.doit.wisc.edu/webstreamer/[account name]

A more complete solution for this problem, which will eliminate these undesirable password prompts on all remote servers you may use is suggested by Apple at this URL

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301711

The fix requires you to change a preference in your operating system:

Open the Terminal. 
Type: defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true 
Press Return. 
Restart the computer. 

These steps will stop the creation of .DS_Store files on network volumes. There are few negative effects if any (e.g. "Get Info" comments you may create on files on the server will not show to other mac users of the same account).

Users of our Flash Media Server are not affected by the above issue, however, if they want to eliminate the accumulation of .DS_Store and other .DS_ files in their folders, they can use the same procedure to disable the creation of these files.

An alternate solution for Macintosh users is to access the server using the smb:// protocol which will work on only on the Madison campus network or via a VPN connection. Non-Madison campus users will need to disable the creating of .DS_Store files or use a Windows-based client for webDAV connections.

Note that for security reasons, we do not offer FTP connections any longer.

For a complete reference of our Streaming Server upload URLs and alternate smb:// and windows filesharing URLs, see this helpdesk article.