Description:

Catacomb is a WebDAV repository module for use with the Apache
WebDAV module, mod_dav. Apache mod_dav parses WebDAV and DeltaV
protocol requests into operations on a repository providing
persistent storage of resources and their properties. The default
repository for mod_dav is provided by a separate module,
mod_dav_fs, which stores resource bodies as files in the
filesystem, and stores properties in a (G)DBM database.

Catacomb provides a replacement for mod_dav_fs called
mod_dav_repos that stores resources and their properties in a
relational database (MySQL). The primary advantage of this
approach is the searching capabilities of the database are used to
implement the DASL protocol. Additionally, the database allows
straightforward implementation of the versioning capabilities of
the DeltaV protocol.

By shifting to relational database technology, Catacomb is a
platform that contains important aspects of typical document
management systems: the ability to store large numbers of
documents, and search over their metadata. Furthermore, it is
possible (via source code modification) to change the set of
predefined properties stored in the main schema of the relational
database. Properties in the main schema are faster to search.

This project is the first open source implementation of the DASL
and DeltaV(linear versioning) protocols. We plan on tracking the
evolution of this protocol.