Today I needed to share a directory of files that were about 2GB but had no USB stick to transfer them. As both of us were on the same local network, it was time for a quick hack and setup a webserver/webdav to share the files. Here are copy-paste one-liners that work on macOS. The first two share the current directory and the Apache option shares /Library/WebServer/WebDAV. The consolidated scripts were cleaned up with ChatGPT.

Quick comparison

Method	Auth	Setup	Best for
Python HTTP	No	Instant	Quick ad-hoc sharing without authentication
wsgidav	Yes	Easy	Finder / WebDAV clients
Apache WebDAV	Yes	Heavy	Long-running system service

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Simple HTTP share

This uses Python’s stdlib and does not support any authentication.

python3 -m http.server 18080

This will start a http server on port 18080 and share the contents of the current directory without any authentication.

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WSGIDAV — best option

Requires an installation of wsgidev in Python. macOS blocks pip install into system Python, so you have two sane options. Note: please change user / pass as needed!

Temp install - Throwaway one time

If you really want a throwaway one time, you can use this single liner.

python3 -m venv /tmp/wsgidav.$$ && source /tmp/wsgidav.$$/bin/activate && pip install -q wsgidav lxml cheroot && printf '{ "host":"0.0.0.0","port":18080,"provider_mapping":{"/":{"root":".","readonly":false}},"simple_dc":{"user_mapping":{"*":{"user":{"password":"pass"}}}},"http_authenticator":{"domain_controller":"wsgidav.dc.simple_dc.SimpleDomainController"} }' > /tmp/wsgidav.$$/conf.json && wsgidav --server cheroot --config /tmp/wsgidav.$$/conf.json

Permanent install - WSGIDAV in a venv

python3 -m venv ~/wsgidav-venv
source ~/wsgidav-venv/bin/activate
pip install wsgidav cheroot lxml
cat > ~/wsgidav.conf <<'EOF'
{
  "host": "0.0.0.0",
  "port": 18080,
  "provider_mapping": {
    "/": {
      "root": ".",
      "readonly": false
    }
  },
  "simple_dc": {
    "user_mapping": {
      "*": {
        "user": {
          "password": "pass"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "http_authenticator": {
    "domain_controller": "wsgidav.dc.simple_dc.SimpleDomainController"
  },
  "verbose": 1
}
EOF

Start WSGIDAV

wsgidav --config ~/wsgidav.conf

How to Access

• Finder → Go → Connect to Server

  http://localhost:18080/

• curl

  curl -u user:pass http://localhost:18080/

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Stop WSGIDAV

Ctrl+C

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Built-in Apache WebDAV

An alternative to WSGIDAV is to use the built-in Apache WebDAV. This is a bit more involved, but it is a system service.

The setup script combines multiple steps into a single script:

• Enables WebDAV
• Creates the share dir
• Adds basic auth
• Wires /WebDAV
• Restarts Apache

Setup script

#!/bin/bash
set -e

USER_NAME="user"
PASS_FILE="/etc/apache2/webdav.passwd"
DAV_DIR="/Library/WebServer/WebDAV"
CONF="/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-webdav.conf"
HTTPD="/etc/apache2/httpd.conf"

echo "Enabling WebDAV modules..."
sudo sed -i '' 's/#LoadModule dav_module/LoadModule dav_module/' $HTTPD
sudo sed -i '' 's/#LoadModule dav_fs_module/LoadModule dav_fs_module/' $HTTPD

echo "Creating WebDAV directory..."
sudo mkdir -p "$DAV_DIR"
sudo chown -R _www:_www "$DAV_DIR"
sudo chmod -R 755 "$DAV_DIR"

echo "Creating password file..."
sudo htpasswd -c "$PASS_FILE" "$USER_NAME"

echo "Writing WebDAV config..."
sudo tee "$CONF" >/dev/null <<EOF
Alias /WebDAV $DAV_DIR

<Directory "$DAV_DIR">
    DAV On
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "WebDAV"
    AuthUserFile $PASS_FILE
    Require valid-user
    Options Indexes
</Directory>
EOF

echo "Including WebDAV config..."
grep -q "httpd-webdav.conf" $HTTPD || \
  echo "Include /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-webdav.conf" | sudo tee -a $HTTPD

echo "Restarting Apache..."
sudo apachectl restart

echo
echo " WebDAV ready:"
echo "   http://localhost/WebDAV/"

Save as webdav.sh, then:

chmod +x webdav.sh
./webdav.sh

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Access

• Finder → Go → Connect to Server

  http://localhost/WebDAV/

• Files live in:

  /Library/WebServer/WebDAV

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Stop / disable Apache WebDAV

Stop Apache completely

sudo apachectl stop

Start again

sudo apachectl start

Fully remove WebDAV (optional cleanup)

sudo rm /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-webdav.conf
sudo rm /etc/apache2/webdav.passwd
sudo apachectl restart

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