RE: [RFC2518 Issue] PROPFIND 'allprop' usage

This is very good feedback.

To clarify, does the GoLive 5 WebDAV client rely on using PROPFIND 'allprop'
requests to get all custom properties on **any** webDAV server?  or against
a specific webDAV server?  Have you tested this against various servers?
Does it work with all of them?

I'd point out that even if the RFC weakens the requirements for supporting
'allprop', existing (shipped) implementations are not going to change, and
when new versions come out, they may still support verbose 'allprop' (there
will be nothing in the RFC to prevent verbose 'allprop' responses).

Lisa

> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
> [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Hartmut Warncke
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 4:07 AM
> To: Lisa Dusseault; WebDAV WG
> Subject: Re: [RFC2518 Issue] PROPFIND 'allprop' usage
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have major concerns regarding the change of  the response on a PROPFIND
> 'allprop' request in the way you described it.
>
> Such a change would be  *v e r y  harmful*   for the GoLive 5
> WebDAV client.
> When we send a PROPFIND 'allprop' request we expect all
> properties which are
> defined on the resource, especially  the Lockproperties and all custom
> properties defined by GoLive 5 (which we have PROPPATCHED before).
>
> We are probably able to replace PROPFIND 'allprop' requests by
> PROPFIND 'prop'
> requests in future GoLive releases (which would be indeed much
> more efficient)
> but the suggested change in the protocol would be a  *disaster*
> for GoLive 5
> which is already in the box.
>
> Best, Hartmut
>
>
> Lisa Dusseault wrote:
>
> > Past discussions have shown that servers frequently have trouble
> > implementing PROPFIND 'allprop'.  Jim asked me to summarize the past
> > discussion & list the open issues so that we can get this
> fixed, if it can
> > be fixed, in revisions to 2518.
> >
> > There are already cases where not all properties will be returned:
> > RFC2518: "In the case of allprop and propname, if a principal
> does not have
> > the
> >    right to know whether a particular property exists then the property
> >    should be silently excluded from the response."
> >
> > John Stracke's proposal for reducing/specifying the scope of
> 'allprop', and
> > discussion of the motivation:
> >  -
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JulSep/0092.html
> >  -
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JulSep/0310.html
> >
> > It has been a point of discussion for Advanced Collections:
> >  -
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0008.html
> > "Clients need to know whether the property is computed on the fly before
> > requesting it.  There is no way to find out.  The impact of
> computing on the
> > fly is especially significant when a client requests allprop.
> There may be
> > other properties that are computed on the fly as well.  DAV:getetag is
> > computed, and some versioning history properties may also be computed."
> >
> > Also in Versioning:
> >  -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0075.html
> "There has also been a massive growth in the number of available DAV
> properties.  PROPFIND allprop operations may lead to very large
> responses even with Depth: 1, which would slow down performance
> for users due to network speeds.  It might be worthwhile to add this
> facet to the open issue ALLPROP_AND_COMPUTED."
>
> Also in ACLs, Babich argues that clients who request 'allprop' don't
really
> want to see the ACL property, thus they ought to specifically ask for it.
>  - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998JulSep/0101.html
>
> Several server implementors have voiced the opinion that 'allprop' should
be
> "put out of its misery" (GMC) or at least weakened.  Often this is because
> of standard or custom properties that must be calculated by the server
(e.g.
> 'lockdiscovery'), and the calculation can become extraordinarily expensive
> with an 'allprop' of depth: infinity.
>
> The only server-side argument for keeping 'allprop' is that
server-to-server
> COPY requires it; but if anybody has implemented this yet and can't use
> 'propname' instead, please speak up.
>
> Summary:
> There thus seems to be a consensus among server implementors and those
> designing new features for DAV.  What's missing in order to resolve this
> issue for fixing RFC2518 is input from clients.
>
> 1.  Is anybody aware of clients that rely on particular properties being
> returned in 'allprop'?  If the properties relied upon include any more
than
> the set DAV:{creationdate, displayname, getcontentlanguage,
> getcontentlength, getcontenttype, getetag, getlastmodified} (the
properties
> required for DAV level 1 support) I would be very surprised.  Thus,
servers
> may be able to restrict the required property set to this set.
>
> 2.  Is anybody aware of clients that rely on 'allprop', rather than
> 'propname', for property discovery?  This would be a more serious issue if
> major client implementations actually rely on doing property discovery
using
> 'allprop', and attempt this against various implementations of WebDAV
> servers.
>
> These seem to be our options for modifying RFC2518 (remember, it has to be
a
> simple mod):
>  - deprecate 'allprop' and tell clients not to use it, but to use
'propname'
> instead
>  - define 'allprop' to be the set of properties required for DAV level 1
> support (although servers could freely return more properties if desired)
>  - explicitly allow servers to return an error code (507?) for properties
> that were too expensive to calculate for a 'allprop' request, but still
> allowing the client to do property discovery through 'allprop'
>
> Please voice your preferences among these options, objections, or other
> ideas.
>
> thanks,
> Lisa
> Xythos

Received on Monday, 13 November 2000 10:48:32 UTC