WebDAV "PROPFIND" exception in IIS due to network share?

Question

Hi all,

We're finding continuous exceptions in our event viewer on our live box to the following exception:

[snippet]

Process information:

Process ID: 3916

Process name: w3wp.exe

Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

Exception information:

Exception type: HttpException

Exception message: Path 'PROPFIND' is forbidden.

Thread information:

Thread ID: 14

Thread account name: OURDOMAIN\Account

Is impersonating: True

Stack trace:

at System.Web.HttpMethodNotAllowedHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)

at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()

at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

Other Specs: Windows Server 2003 R2 & IIS 6.0

We've narrowed it down to occuring when people try to access shares on the box from within the network, and have discovered (we think) that its due to the WebDAV web services extension being previously disabled by past staff. The exceptions are being thrown when trying to access directories that are virtual dirs in IIS, and plain old UNC network shares

What the implications for enabling the WebDAV extensions on our live web server?

And will this solve our problems with the exceptions in our event log?

Answer 1

PROPFIND is in fact a part of WebDav. Disabling WebDav will prevent users from authoring the website using WebDav extensions. Enabling WebDav does not pose a security threat, but you do not want to have it enabled if you do not use it. What it looks like is that someone (or some application) is attempting to update the site using WebDav Extensions. Before enabling it, I would find out where/who is trying to access via WebDav to see if its allowed. Accessing the share via UNC Path should not invoke WebDav methods and I highly doubt is the cause.

Answer 2

Hi, I recently asked the same question at serverfault.com: SMB administrative Shares (C$) not accessible on a server running SharePoint - WebDAV MiniRedir reports PROPFIND not implemented

Now it struck me that some of the services might be not running. I started the "Server" service using services.msc and UNC works again. So does the Visual Studio Remote Debugger. Hallelujah.