How to allow writing to files via Apache and WebDAV - apache

Question

I am having trouble understanding how I can get to edit files on a WebDAV setup. I have set up the Auth correctly, as verified by loads of online tutorials, yet there are some files like .htaccess which I can't edit.
The contents of the VirtualHost setup are
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin xxx
ServerName xxx
DocumentRoot /data/www/vhosts/xxx
<Directory /data/www/vhosts/xxx>
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<Location />
DAV On
AuthType Basic
AuthName "WebDAV Access"
AuthUserFile /data/www/.htpasswd-webdav
Require valid-user
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
I've generated the correct username in the file too, and I can log in successfully and see all the files. Like I say, the problem is that certain files are unreadable and unwritable, the main culprits being .htaccess and .gitignore.
I have set the permissions on all files to 664 and all folders to 775 and a user:group of xxx:www-data. The reason being that this allows PHP to read/write the files ok, and our remote login user xxx to do the same without permissions issues.
Is there something specific I need to do to allow reading writing to these hidden dot files? I'm completely stumped, as most tutorials I've read are telling me that if I don't set the rights on dot files to root:root then they will be writable. I am using a Mac to connect to the WebDAV service, which runs on Ubuntu, if this makes any difference
Just for clarity, all of the xxx in this question is to hide info.

Answer 1

So it seems that I can allow access to specific files using the below
<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>
I forgot that .htaccess files are blocked over HTTP by default.
EDIT:
The final working setup, to make all files writeable in the webdav environment, with Digest secure authentication is:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin xxx
ServerName www.domain.name
DocumentRoot xxx
<Directory xxx>
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<FilesMatch "\.(htaccess|php)$">
Order allow,deny
allow from all
ForceType text/plain
</FilesMatch>
<Location />
DAV On
AuthType Digest
AuthName "Webdav Access"
AuthDigestDomain / http://www.domain.name/
AuthDigestProvider file
AuthUserFile /data/www/digest.users
Require valid-user
php_value engine off
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
I hope this helps someone else. It took days to find all this info out on the web.

Answer 2

Also check the permissions of /data/www/ itself. It should be writable for the apache user.