Built-in network file sharing completely non-functional with password protection enabled
Related:
Please read the full report in the issue linked above. It contains logs, more screenshots, and more details.
Affected version
45.0
most previous versions
Description
GNOME Settings allows the user to share their public folder using the "Sharing" panel in Settings. There is also a banner displayed in Nautilus to encourage users to try this.
Current behaviour
Unfortunately, though this works without a password just fine, enabling the security option of password protection causes the share to be unmountable on both the host, and any guest devices running GNOME.
Also, the File Sharing window displays a url to a DAV folder. If clicked, the user is presented with this:
And if pasted into Files, you get this:
Expected behaviour
The user should be able to type their username and password, or "guest" and password, and have their share mounted correctly.
Proposed solution
I think the password option needs to be removed until it is fixed, and maybe a disclaimer should be added stating that it's completely public with no password protection in an info bubble or something, at least until it's fixed. Else, users may become frustrated or mislead. Also, if typing the username "guest" and the correct password is not all the setup that is needed to use this feature, the following docs may need updating/expanding:
gnome-user-share/gnome-user-share
Additional details
I've observed this issue for many years across several distros, most recently including Fedora (36-39 beta), and Nautilus since the 3.X days. I have all the necessary DAV tools installed, as well as gnome-user-share
.