webdav-tck 2026.1.1

WebDAV server protocol compliance test suite

WebDAV TCK

A Python port of the litmus WebDAV server protocol compliance test suite.

Overview

webdav-tck is a WebDAV server protocol compliance test suite that validates server implementations against RFC 4918 (HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning). This is a modern Python rewrite of the original C-based litmus test suite with async/await support and comprehensive test coverage.

Key Highlights:

• 🚀 Modern async Python implementation
• ✅ 68 tests covering WebDAV Class 1 & 2 operations
• 🎨 Rich colored terminal output
• 📊 Detailed test reporting and debug logging
• 🔒 Full locking support (exclusive/shared, conditional requests)
• 🌐 UTF-8 and Unicode support
• 📁 Large file handling (>2GB) support

Features

• ✅ Basic Operations: OPTIONS, PUT, GET, MKCOL, DELETE
• ✅ COPY/MOVE: Resource and collection operations with Depth and Overwrite headers
• ✅ Properties: PROPFIND, PROPPATCH with custom and live properties
• ✅ Locking: WebDAV Class 2 locking (exclusive/shared, conditional requests)
• ✅ HTTP Protocol: Expect: 100-continue header handling
• ✅ Large Files: 2GB+ file handling with streaming support

Installation

From source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/abilian/webdav-tck.git
cd webdav-tck

# Install dependencies
uv sync

From PyPI (coming soon)

pip install webdav-tck

Usage

Command Line

# Basic usage
dav-tck http://localhost/webdav/

# With authentication
dav-tck http://localhost/webdav/ username password

# With HTTPS (ignore certificate errors)
dav-tck --insecure https://localhost/webdav/

# Quiet mode
dav-tck --quiet http://localhost/webdav/

# Run specific test suites
dav-tck --suites=basic,copymove,props,locks,http,largefile http://localhost/webdav/

# Use proxy
dav-tck --proxy=http://proxy.example.com:8080 http://localhost/webdav/

Note: The command is available as both dav-tck and litmus after installation.

Options

• --proxy, -p URL: Use specified HTTP proxy
• --system-proxy, -s: Use system proxy configuration
• --client-cert, -c FILE: Use PKCS#12 client certificate
• --insecure, -i: Ignore TLS certificate verification failures
• --quiet, -q: Use abbreviated output format
• --colour/--no-colour: Force color output on/off (default: auto-detect)
• --suites LIST: Comma-separated list of test suites to run

Test Suites

Basic (11 tests)

Tests fundamental HTTP and WebDAV operations:

• OPTIONS request and DAV header checking
• PUT/GET with byte-for-byte comparison
• UTF-8 characters in URIs
• MKCOL (create collection)
• DELETE (resources and collections)
• Error handling (409, 404, 415 status codes)

COPY/MOVE (7 tests)

Tests resource and collection operations:

• Simple COPY operations
• Overwrite behavior (Overwrite: T/F headers)
• Copying into non-existent collections (409 responses)
• Recursive collection copying (Depth: infinity)
• Shallow collection copying (Depth: 0)
• MOVE operations with lock handling
• Collection moves with members

Properties (11 tests)

Tests property manipulation:

• PROPFIND with various depths
• Invalid XML handling (400 responses)
• Setting custom properties via PROPPATCH
• Property persistence across MOVE
• Deleting and replacing properties
• Null namespace properties
• High Unicode character support (U+10000)
• Well-formed XML validation
• Live properties (getlastmodified)

Locks (36 tests)

Tests WebDAV Class 2 locking:

• Exclusive and shared locks
• Lock discovery via PROPFIND
• Lock refresh operations
• Owner vs non-owner access control
• Lock token management
• Conditional PUT with If: headers
• Complex conditional requests (lock token + ETag)
• Collection locking (Depth: infinity)
• Indirect lock refresh via collection members
• Lock-null resources (LOCK on unmapped URLs)
• Locks don't follow COPY operations

HTTP (1 test)

Tests HTTP protocol compliance:

• Expect: 100-continue header handling
• Raw socket communication for protocol testing
• Interim response validation

Large Files (2 tests)

Tests handling of files larger than 2GB:

• Streaming PUT for large files (2GB+)
• Streaming GET with content verification
• 64-bit offset support verification
• Memory-efficient chunked transfers

Development

Setup

# Install development dependencies
uv sync

# Run tests
uv run pytest

# Type checking
uv run mypy src/
uv run pyrefly src/

# Linting and formatting
uv run ruff check src/ tests/
uv run ruff format src/ tests/

Project Structure

webdav_tck/
├── src/webdav_tck/      # Main package
│   ├── framework/       # Test framework
│   │   ├── result.py    # Result types
│   │   ├── runner.py    # Test runner
│   │   └── suite.py     # Suite management
│   ├── suites/          # Test suites
│   │   ├── basic.py     # Basic operations (11 tests)
│   │   ├── copymove.py  # COPY/MOVE (7 tests)
│   │   ├── props.py     # Properties (11 tests)
│   │   ├── locks.py     # Locking (36 tests)
│   │   ├── http.py      # HTTP protocol (1 test)
│   │   └── largefile.py # Large files (2 tests)
│   ├── client.py        # WebDAV HTTP client
│   ├── session.py       # Session management
│   ├── xml_utils.py     # XML builders/parsers
│   └── __main__.py      # CLI entry point
├── tests/               # Unit tests
│   └── test_framework.py
└── pyproject.toml       # Project configuration

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• httpx (async HTTP client)
• lxml (XML processing)
• click (CLI interface)
• rich (colored output)

Implementation Status

Total: 68 tests implemented (100% complete!)

Suite	Tests	Status
basic	11	✅ Complete
copymove	7	✅ Complete
props	11	✅ Complete
locks	36	✅ Complete
http	1	✅ Complete
largefile	2	✅ Complete

Progress: 68/68 tests (100%)

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 or later (GPL-2.0-or-later)

This maintains compatibility with the original litmus project.

Credits

• Original litmus: Copyright (C) 1999-2025 Joe Orton
• Python port: Copyright (C) 2025 Abilian SAS and contributors

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

References

• Original litmus
• RFC 4918: WebDAV