In the Webdav standard, there is a header option named "depth". This header must be given when running a propfind webdav request. The value may be greater 0 or the constant "infinity", i.e. the whole file tree is requested. In the WebdavServlet, INFINITY is set to 3, which unfortunately does not correspond to the standard. >>> CODE >>> /** * Default depth is infite. */ private static final int INFINITY = 3; // To limit tree browsing a bit <<< END OF CODE <<< Perhaps this could be changed to a much higher value (e.g. maxint). Below, there is a method named propfind, where the following code can be found: >>> CODE >>> String depthStr = req.getHeader("Depth"); if (depthStr == null) { depth = INFINITY; } else { if (depthStr.equals("0")) { depth = 0; } else if (depthStr.equals("1")) { depth = 1; } else if (depthStr.equals("infinity")) { depth = INFINITY; } } <<< END OF CODE <<< Perhaps one should use an integer conversion function and in case of an exception one could use infinity. Hope this describes the problem good enough. The same problem occurs in Tomcat 5.x, as well.
The limit is in place to prevent what could be an expensive operation. I have made this configurable with the default still set to 3. This change has been made to trunk and proposed for 6.0.x and 5.5.x
This has been fixed in 6.0.x and will be included in 6.0.19 onwards.