How exactly does iDisk work?

[compton]

Yea I was just curious how iDisk works. Its similar but not exactly the same as AFP, because that shares a whole OS X home directory, where as iDisk is customizable. I heard once I believe that it runs off of OS X Server, and Server allows customization of network disks like iDisk. Does anyone have any insight into this subject?

 

[Arden]

What?

I thought iDisk was basically just another FTP destination.

 

[symphonix]

iDisk uses the WebDAV protocol. You can find some tech info on the protocol here: http://www.webdav.org/

I think it is an Apache module (from memory) and can be run on Mac OS X and Unix machines.

I remember reading an article where a user who had to manage twenty macs used a Webdav server on a Linux box, and a DNS redirect to make the macs on the network treat the server as if it were Apple's own iDisk.

 

[compton]

But should you be able to do that same idea with OS X Server? Cause I doubt Apple uses Linux boxes.

 

[symphonix]

Of course. I suspect Apple is running the iDisk on either Mac OS X server or some other Unix/BSD based server. The WebDav module can be run on any system that runs Apache, which includes Mac OS X (which comes with Apache built-in).