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Anonymous access

  • November 24, 2005 at 4:21 am

    #364320

    Officially the line seems to be that only accredited users can access Reports, but I've seen suggestions for work arounds. What are the best options for allowing Users access to Reports Services from a different domain, apart from requiring them to enter user credentials every time they point their browser at the ReportsServer. There seems to be suggestions that with some tweaking Anonymous users can run reports.

    I'm invoking reports from a C# desktop app by building the url - is there some way to pass the credentials in the url? I know how to generate reports entirely from C# code(and pass credentials), but that loses the interactive functionality of the browser interface...

    brian smith


    Brian

  • November 24, 2005 at 4:21 pm

    #605773

    Maybe not fitting with your architecture, but why not use the webservice and then you can pass a specific set of windows credentials to the WS when you connect/create the proxy.  When you are dealing with authenticated users, just pass their credentials, when dealing with 'anonymous' users, set the credentials of the account created specifically for them to access the server.

     

     

    Steve.

  • November 25, 2005 at 3:56 am

    #605819

    The main problem (I think) with using the web service (which I agree will solve the issue) is the loss of the interactive html - i.e. the ability to change parameters, drill-down, print etc from within the browser. For now, I think I'm going to have to accept that, as I have no control over the client's infrastructure.

    brian


    Brian

  • November 25, 2005 at 5:29 pm

    #605920

    There are ways around this, but they all involve some coding if you would like to keep the full functionality.  This will be a little short on detail, as I am on my home PC rather than office so I can't check the exact settings that need to be changed!

    If you don't require the full functionality of the report manager, you can simply add the anonymous web user for your internet server to the "report viewers" group in the RS manager, then enable anonymous access to the various folders in IIS.  This will let anyone view reports on your RS server, however you will no longer be able to manage the RS server and reports as anonymous access takes precidence over Windows Authentication for everyone.

    The other way is to add a custom security assembly to your RS installation.  Again I can't get the actual link but there is a very good article with code on the net about how to do it.  Try this link to MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dnsql2k/html/ufairs.asp?frame=true#ufairs_topic3

    I personnally have not used this solution but do know of a number of sites that have.

    Hope this all helps!

    Stuart R

  • November 26, 2005 at 6:34 am

    #605953

    Thanks for that. I think totally anonymous access is probably a step too far, as we have other users who do authenticate. Ideally I want to restrict anon to a single Reports folder. So I'll look at the custom security approach.

    brian


    Brian

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