Git LFS WebDAV

Store LFS files on any WebDAV server without a proper LFS backend.

A Custom Transfer Agent for Git LFS which allows you to use a remote WebDAV folder as the backend for your LFS files.

How to use

For security reasons Git doesn't allow to configure a standalone transfer agent that will be used for every clone automatically. The local repository needs to be configured after every clone instead. So when cloning a repository Git won't know where to find the LFS files and fail. There is really no way around this, but to make things easy I have hidden most of the required configuration inside the git-lfs-webdav init command.

Configure a new repository

• Configure your repository as usual with Git and Git LFS
• You will need the git-lfs-webdav executable
  • Either include it in your repository so that users won't have to install it (e.g. .lfs/git-lfs-webdav-[platform])
  • or put it on PATH yourself (your users will have to do the same)
• Initialize WebDAV using
  • ./.lfs/git-lfs-webdav-[platform] init https://your/webdav/folder/ (if included)
  • or git-lfs-webdav init https://your/webdav/folder/
• Commit the created .lfsconfig (and the binaries if you have included them)
• Push everything as usual

Clone an existing repository

• Clone the repository as usual using git clone <url>
  • This will work for the normal files but it will fail with Error downloading object for the LFS files
• Enter your cloned repository with cd <folder>
• You will need the git-lfs-webdav executable
  • Either it is included in your repository (e.g. .lfs/git-lfs-webdav-[platform])
  • or you have to put it on PATH yourself
• Initialize WebDAV using
  • ./.lfs/git-lfs-webdav-[platform] init (if included)
  • or git-lfs-webdav init
• As instructed by the initialization run git reset --hard master to fix your LFS files.

Troubleshooting

Authorize 401 Error

git-lfs-webdav will use the credential manager of git. Ensure that there is no leftover entry in the configured credential backend (e.g. the Windows Credential Manager on Windows).

You should normally be prompted to enter a username and password by the configured credential backend. If this does not work (for whatever reason) you can always configure the login credentials using

• ./.lfs/git-lfs-webdav-[platform] login (if included)
• or git-lfs-webdav login

The entered credentials will be stored in cleartext in the .git/config file of your local repository (to prevent them from being committed accidentally).