Alfresco – Unable to move/rename a file/folder using AOS

When playing with the AOS implementation, a colleague of mine faced an interesting issue where he just wasn’t able to move or rename any files or folders. The creation and deletion were working properly but he was unable to move or rename anything when using a Network Location or a Network Drive. This environment was freshly installed with a front-end (Apache HTTPD) setup in SSL so we worked together to find out what was the issue. All workstations were impacted no matter what OS was used (Windows 7, 8, 10, aso…).

The Network Location or Drive were mounted using the following:

• URL Style => https://alfresco_server_01.domain.com/alfresco/aos/
• WebDAV Style => \\alfresco_server_01.domain.com@SSL\DavWWWRoot\alfresco\aos\

In all cases, the workstations were able to connect and create nodes in the Alfresco Server (through AOS), it meant that the parameters/configuration on the Alfresco and Apache HTTPD sides were pretty much OK but nevertheless we still checked them to be sure:

alfresco@alfresco_server_01:~$ grep -E "^alfresco\.|^share\." $CATALINA_HOME/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
alfresco.context=alfresco
alfresco.host=alfresco_server_01.domain.com
alfresco.port=443
alfresco.protocol=https
share.context=share
share.host=alfresco_server_01.domain.com
share.port=443
share.protocol=https
alfresco@alfresco_server_01:~$
alfresco@alfresco_server_01:~$
alfresco@alfresco_server_01:~$ grep aos $CATALINA_HOME/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
aos.baseUrlOverwrite=https://alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443/alfresco/aos
#aos.sitePathOverwrite=/alfresco/aos
alfresco@alfresco_server_01:~$

For me, the parameters above seemed correct at first sight. The Apache HTTPD being in SSL on the port 443 and redirecting everything to the Tomcat using the mod_jk, it is normal for the alfresco and share parameters to use https and the port 443 (and even if the Tomcat is actually not in SSL) because these values should reflect the front-end. For the “aos.baseUrlOverwrite”, it is normally to be used only in case you have a proxy server in front of your Alfresco and that this proxy isn’t an Apache HTTPD. Since my colleague was using Apache, this parameter wasn’t really needed but having it set to the correct value shouldn’t hurt either. The correct value for this parameter is also the front-end URL and it is the current value, or so it seemed.

With the above parameters, we were able to create any kind of files and folders in our Network Locations/Drives. I took some screenshots for this blog and I used a simple folder to demonstrate the issue and the solution. So creating a folder with the default name is working properly:

At this point, I had a new folder in my Alfresco Server which I could clearly see and manage via the Share client. So renaming it from Share wasn’t a problem but doing the same thing through AOS (Network Location or Drive) resulted in this:

At the same time, the following logs were generated on Alfresco side:

2017-11-14 08:34:50,342  ERROR [aoservices-err.StandardWebdavService] [ajp-nio-8009-exec-7] doMove: BAD REQUEST: Destination malformed
2017-11-14 08:34:50,442  ERROR [aoservices-err.StandardWebdavService] [ajp-nio-8009-exec-8] doMove: BAD REQUEST: Destination malformed
2017-11-14 08:34:50,544  ERROR [aoservices-err.StandardWebdavService] [ajp-nio-8009-exec-9] doMove: BAD REQUEST: Destination malformed
2017-11-14 08:34:50,647  ERROR [aoservices-err.StandardWebdavService] [ajp-nio-8009-exec-1] doMove: BAD REQUEST: Destination malformed

With the default log level, that’s not particularly helpful… From the Apache logs, it is pretty easy to see when the folder “New Folder” has been created (MKCOL @ 08:34:21) as well as when I tried to rename it (MOVE @ 08:34:50):

alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:21 +0100] "MKCOL /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 201 640 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:21 +0100] "PROPPATCH /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 207 971 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:21 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder/desktop.ini HTTP/1.1" 404 588 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos HTTP/1.1" 207 5473 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary HTTP/1.1" 207 1784 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 207 1803 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary HTTP/1.1" 207 1784 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "MOVE /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 400 1606 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "MOVE /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 400 1711 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "MOVE /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 400 1711 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "MOVE /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 400 1711 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:34:50 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 207 1909 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"

As you can see above, the renaming failed and the Apache responded with a 400 error code. The error “doMove: BAD REQUEST” on the Alfresco side reminded me of this JIRA but the outcome of this ticket was that the parameter “aos.baseUrlOverwrite” was wrongly set… In our case, its value was “https://alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443/alfresco/aos” (as shown above) and this seemed to be the correct URL… But in fact it wasn’t.

Just to avoid any uncertainty, we tried to change the value to “https://alfresco_server_01.domain.com/alfresco/aos” (so just removing the port :443 which technically can be here or not…) and then restart Alfresco… After doing that, the rename was actually working:

So magically the issue was gone… The associated Apache HTTPD logs showed this time a 201 return code:

alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:04 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos HTTP/1.1" 207 5347 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:04 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 207 1799 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary HTTP/1.1" 207 1780 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites HTTP/1.1" 207 1736 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco HTTP/1.1" 302 224 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/ HTTP/1.1" 207 1858 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND / HTTP/1.1" 302 572 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:05 +0100] "PROPFIND /share/page/repository HTTP/1.1" 501 1490 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:06 +0100] "MOVE /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/New%20folder HTTP/1.1" 201 640 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"
alfresco_server_01.domain.com:443 10.20.30.40 - - [14/Nov/2017:08:48:07 +0100] "PROPFIND /alfresco/aos/Sites/my-site/documentLibrary/Renamed%202 HTTP/1.1" 207 1797 "-" "Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/6.3.9600"

Conclusion for this blog? Take care when you want to set the “aos.baseUrlOverwrite”, do not add the port if it is not really necessary! Another solution to this issue would be to just comment the “aos.baseUrlOverwrite” parameter since it is not needed when using Apache HTTPD. I personally never use this parameter (keeping it commented) because I’m always using Apache :).