Enabling CRXDE Lite in AEM

Last update: July 18, 2024

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin

To ensure that AEM installations are as secure as possible, the security checklist recommends disabling WebDAV in production environments.

However, CRXDE Lite depends on the org.apache.sling.jcr.davex bundle to function properly, so disabling WebDAV will effectively disable CRXDE Lite as well.

When this happens, browsing to https://serveraddress:4502/crx/de/index.jsp will display an empty root node, and all HTTP requests to CRXDE Lite resources will fail:

404 Resource at '/crx/server/crx.default/jcr:root/.1.json' not found: No resource found

While this recommendation is intended to reduce attack surfaces as much as possible, system administrators might sometimes need access to CRXDE Lite to browse content or debug issues on production instances.

You can enable CRXDE Lite with either OSGi settings or with a cURL command.

WARNING
Due to slight differences in how these methods operate you should use either OSGI or cURL.
The two methods are not interchangeable.

Enabling CRXDE Lite with OSGI

If disabled, you can turn CRXDE Lite on by following the below procedure:

  1. Go to the OSGi Components console at http://localhost:4502/system/console/components

  2. Search for the following component:

    • org.apache.sling.jcr.davex.impl.servlets.SlingDavExServlet

  3. Click the wrench icon next to it to see its configuration options:

    chlimage_1-80

  4. Create the following configuration:

    • Root path: /crx/server
    • Tick the box under Use absolute URIs.

  5. When finished using CRXDE Lite, make sure you disable WebDAV again.

Enabling CRXDE Lite with cURL

You can also enable CRXDE Lite via cURL, by running (both of) these two commands:

  • Enable create-absolute-uri :

    curl -u admin:admin 'http://localhost:4502/system/console/configMgr/org.apache.sling.jcr.davex.impl.servlets.SlingDavExServlet' --data-raw 'apply=true&action=ajaxConfigManager&%24location=&dav.create-absolute-uri=true&propertylist=dav.create-absolute-uri'

  • Define alias :

    curl -u admin:admin 'http://localhost:4502/system/console/configMgr/org.apache.sling.jcr.davex.impl.servlets.SlingDavExServlet' --data-raw 'apply=true&action=ajaxConfigManager&%24location=&alias=/crx/server&propertylist=alias'

Other Resources

For more information on AEM 6 security features, see the following pages: