Mounting a remote path in Finder (WebDAV)¶

rpcclient can expose any path on the remote target as a local WebDAV volume, so macOS Finder (or any WebDAV client) can browse and edit the remote filesystem read-write as if it were mounted.

A small async WebDAV server runs inside the rpcclient process; every WebDAV request is translated into client.fs calls against the target. Nothing runs on the target and there are no server-side changes, so it works the same for iOS, macOS, and Linux targets.

WebDAV is used rather than FTP because macOS Finder mounts FTP read-only — it only allows writes to servers that implement WebDAV locking, which this server does.

Quick start¶

Serve the target's root and mount it in your file manager in one step:

rpcdav HOSTNAME --mount

--mount uses the host's native WebDAV mechanism — mount_webdav on macOS, net use on Windows, gio mount on Linux — and reveals the volume in the file manager. If none is available, it falls back to printing the URL to open manually.

Serve a specific path instead of /:

rpcdav HOSTNAME /var/mobile/Containers --mount

The same is available as a subcommand of rpcclient:

rpcclient HOSTNAME webdav [PATH] [--mount]

Press Ctrl-C to unmount and stop the server.

Mounting manually¶

Without --mount, the server prints its local URL:

WebDAV server serving '/' at http://127.0.0.1:52314/
In Finder: Go → Connect to Server → http://127.0.0.1:52314/

In Finder, choose Go → Connect to Server (⌘K) and enter that URL (on Linux/Windows, open it in your file manager's "connect to server" equivalent, or use any WebDAV client).

Usage¶

Usage: rpcdav [OPTIONS] HOSTNAME [PATH]

  Serve a remote HOSTNAME's PATH (default: /) over WebDAV for local mounting.

Options:
  -p, --port INTEGER        TCP port to connect to
  -r, --rebind-symbols      reload all symbols upon connection
  -l, --load-all-libraries  load all libraries
  --mount                   mount the served path locally and reveal it in your file manager
  --host TEXT               local interface to bind
  --bind-port INTEGER       local TCP port (0 picks a free port)
  --readonly                expose the path read-only

From a script¶

The webdav subsystem is available on every client:

server = await client.webdav.serve("/var/mobile", host="127.0.0.1", port=0)
print(server.url)  # http://127.0.0.1:<port>/
# ... use the mount ...
await server.stop()

Notes and limitations¶

Freshness / stale views. A mounted WebDAV volume is a client-cached network filesystem. Changes you make through the mount are immediate, but changes made on the target out-of-band may appear stale until the client revalidates. WebDAV has no live-reload mechanism, and macOS's WebDAV client caches directory listings and attributes at the kernel level regardless of server hints. To force a refresh, navigate out of the folder and back (or reopen the window).
Read-write browse, read, create, edit, mkdir, rename/move, and delete all propagate to the target.
Finder metadata (.DS_Store, AppleDouble ._*, …) writes are swallowed — reported as success but never written to the target, so they don't clutter it or fail on read-only roots.
chmod / chown do not propagate. WebDAV has no representation for POSIX permissions or ownership, and macOS's WebDAV client never sends them — such changes on the mount are local no-ops. Use client.fs.chmod(...) / client.fs.chown(...) for real remote permission changes.
New files and directories are created by the process the rpcserver runs as, so they are owned by that user (e.g. root when the server runs as root), with the server's default permissions — not your local user.