litmus is a WebDAV server test suite, which aims to test whether a server is compliant with the WebDAV protocol as specified in RFC2518; current tests cover:

• OPTIONS for DAV: header
• PUT, GET with byte comparison
• MKCOL
• DELETE (collections, non-collections)
• COPY, MOVE using combinations of:
  • overwrite t/f
  • destination exists/doesn’t exist
  • collection/non-collection
• Property manipulation and querying:
  • set, delete, replace properties
  • persist dead props across COPY
  • namespace handling
• Locking
  • attempts to modify locked resource (as lock owner, not owner)
  • shared/exclusive locks
  • lock discovery
  • collection locking
  • lock refresh

Note that a server which passes all these tests will not necessarily work with any real DAV clients; though the chances are good. litmus is built using the neon library, so supports digest and basic authentication, TLS/SSL, and proxy servers.

---

• Github repository
• Discussion forum
• Bug reports

litmus has been tested on Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, CygWin, and many other Unix systems.

---

Changes in release litmus 0.15, 25 February 2024

• New tests:
  • props: test for DAV:getlastmodified property value
  • basic: test Location header if returned by PUT
• Bug fixes:
  • fix crash on invalid URL command-line (Glenn Strauss)
  • locks: fixed lockscope check error reporting (Glenn Strauss)
  • send correct request content-type in all PROPFIND/PROPPATCH tests
  • various error/warning references updated from RFC 2518 to 4918
• Updated to neon 0.33.0.

Changes in release litmus 0.14, 29 January 2022

• Changed tests:
  • copymove: copy_shallow fixed to check for shallow copy correctly (Javier Godoy)
  • basic: fix test for PUT giving 409 with no parent collection NOTE: this test now fails with Apache httpd < 2.4.55
• Update to neon 0.32.4.

Changes in release litmus 0.13, 9 December 2011 (PGP signature)

• Changed tests:
  • locks: owner_modify checks that PROPPATCH works against a locked resource (thanks to Javier Godoy)
• Support PKCS#12 client cert with –client-cert/-c (Alejandro Alvarez Ayllon)
• Update to neon 0.29.6.

Changes in release litmus 0.12.1, 6 November 2008 (PGP signature)

• Changed tests:
  • locks: remove DELETE from unmapped URI LOCK/DELETE/UNLOCK sequence
  • locks: fail if LOCK gives a lockscope which does not match that requested
  • props: use real URIs for the property namespaces

Changes in release litmus 0.12, 29 September 2008 (PGP signature)

• New tests:
  • props: unmapped_lock (Henrik Holst)
  • basic: put_no_parent
• Changed tests:
  • props: propvalnspace - use a valid URI in the ‘foo’ element
• Update to neon 0.28.3; support neon 0.25.x->0.28.x

Changes in release litmus 0.11, 23 January 2007 (PGP signature)

• New tests from Julian Reschke:
  • props: test for correct PROPPATCH propertyupdate evaluation order
  • copymove: test for “Depth: 0” COPY of collection
• Test URL is no longer path-escaped internally.
• Update to neon 0.26.3.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.5, 2 November 2005 (PGP signature)

• Add another test for handling of unknown state tokens in an If: header.
• Update to neon 0.25.4.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.4, 17 September 2005 (PGP signature)

• Fix possible crashes in lock discovery.
• Update to neon 0.25.3.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.3, 17 August 2005 (PGP signature)

• Fix VPATH builds (Mike Castle).
• Fix build with bundled expat.
• Update to neon 0.25.2.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.2, 29 March 2005 (PGP signature)

• Fix build on Mac OS X.
• Fixes for the “largefile” test suite.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.1, 12 September 2004 (PGP signature)

• Add check for DELETE safety with #fragment in Request-URI.

Changes in release litmus 0.10.0, 12 September 2004 (PGP signature)

• Add some basic collection locking tests.
• Correct fail_complex_cond_put to really send an invalid etag as intended, thanks to Tod Sambar.
• Describe the conditional PUT tests in the FAQ.
• Add test for PROPFIND extensibility rules in request body.
• Skip the ‘expect100’ in the ‘http’ suite for an SSL session.

Changes in release litmus 0.9.4, 24 August 2003 (PGP signature)

• Correct fix for comparison of absolute URIs in PROPFIND responses, thanks to Thomas Kemmer.

Changes in release litmus 0.9.3, 19 August 2003 (PGP signature)

• Fix some segfaults when some lock tests fail (thanks to Thomas Kemmer).
• Fix comparison of hrefs in PROPFIND responses containing absolute https URI.
• Run conditional PUT tests against exclusive-locked resource.

Changes in release litmus 0.9.2, 20 March 2003 (PGP signature)

• Fix build when configured without SSL support.
• Fix build on FreeBSD.

Changes in release litmus 0.9.1, 17 March 2003 (PGP signature)

• Fix build with bundled copy of expat.
• Tweaks to conditional PUT tests (Julian Reschke).

Changes in release litmus 0.9, 16 March 2003 (PGP signature)

• New tests submitted by Julian Reschke:
  • check handling of high Unicode values in property values
  • check handling of resource URIs including non-ASCII characters
• Implement Julian’s conditional PUT tests, testing If: headers with various combinations of lock-tokens and etags.
• Add test for Apache 2.0 namespace handling bug #14969.
• Fix use of proxy with non-default port.

Changes in release litmus 0.8, 26 August 2002 (PGP signature)

• Persistent connections are enabled by default.
• Updated to neon 0.23.0:
  • many SSL fixes and improvements
  • IPv6 support when getaddrinfo() is detected

Changes in release litmus 0.7, 1 May 2002 (PGP signature)

• Updated to neon 0.20.0:
  • better handling of LOCK responses for shared locks; use the lock token from the Lock-Token header (not really in 0.6 as claimed).

Changes in release litmus 0.6.1, 19 March 2002 (PGP signature)

• Better chance of compiling on cygwin.

Changes in release litmus 0.6, 19 March 2002 (PGP signature)

• Fixes for cygwin (thanks to Julian Reschke).
• Improved failure messages.
• If a LOCK fails, dependant tests will be skipped.
• Add documentation to ‘FAQ’ on some of the tests which failed with mod_dav 1.0.2.
• Upgrade to neon 0.20.0-dev:
  • better handling of LOCK responses for shared locks; use the lock token from the Lock-Token header.
  • RFC2518 compliance fix: use absoluteURIs in If: headers

Changes in release litmus 0.5, 5 January 2002 (PGP signature)

• Fix authentication.
• Add support for proxy servers using `–proxy=hostname:port’ option.
  • from build tree, use ‘make OPTS=”–proxy=hostname:port” URL=”…” check’
• Add -k/–keep-going option to ‘litmus’ script, to have testing continue even after a test program fails.

Changes in release litmus 0.4, 5 January 2002 (PGP signature)

• Renamed project from “neon-interop” to “litmus”.
• Greatly improved error messages for test failures throughout.
• Add locking tests (portions from Chris Sharp):
  • modifying a locked resource as and not as lock owner
  • shared and exclusive locks, lock discovery
  • lock doesn’t follow COPY
• Tests are run in a new, empty collection: eliminate problems caused by left-over files from previous failed runs.
• Add tests for MKCOL on plain resource, with strange body.
• Each request will have a request header ‘X-Litmus’ giving the test number and description, to aid debugging using network trace tools.
• Tests separated into several executables. Can easily run a subset of tests now using e.g. ‘make TESTS=locks URL=http://blah/ check’
• Add ‘litmus’ wrapper script and ‘make install’ target.
• Based on neon 0.18: brings portability fixes, etc.

Changes in release neon-interop 0.3, 3 November 2001 (PGP signature)

• Add tests for “empty namespace” bugs found in mod_dav by Julian Reschke.
• Add tests for properties in many namespaces.

Changes in version neon-interop 0.2, 15 October 2001

• Catch up with neon 0.17 test framework, beautify output.

Changes in version neon-interop 0.1, 12 August 2001

• Added check for “Expect: 100-continue” support.

Changes in version neon-interop-0.0

• Initial version used at the WebDAV Interoperability Event in UC Santa Cruz, July 19-20th 2001.

---

Joe Orton