Question

Dynamic display of protected PDF files

Asked by: tnelson217

I have a collection of PDF pages that I would like to store on a file server that is not accessible via HTTP.  I would like to dynamically embed PDFs from that file server into my web page.  

Is this possible?

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Asked On
2007-06-22 at 07:34:01ID22651329
Tags

pdf

,

protected

Topics

Microsoft IIS Web Server

,

Adobe Acrobat

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Comments
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Answers

 

by: FunkmotorPosted on 2007-06-22 at 08:36:46ID: 19342295

Sure, all you have to do is have your web server pull the files from wherever it is that your PDF files are stored.  It will have to be accessible to the web server, and that might still make it vulnerable.

Do you want to do this for security reasons or just because the PDF library is somewhere else and you don't want to duplicate it?

 

by: tnelson217Posted on 2007-06-22 at 09:10:07ID: 19342570

Both.  The files are currently stored on a file server that is not accessible via HTTP and are replicated over to the web server.  I want to avoid the replication and the additional storage needs.  Also, this is sensitive information that is currenly protected only by obsurity (it would be hard to guess at the URL.)

I do not fully understand what needs access to what, and when.  If the web server itself has access to the files, but the directory/files are not directly HTTP-able in the browser, can I still serve the PDF as an embedded object?  Or does the browser need to be able to reach the file directly in order to know how to display it as an embedded object?





 

by: tnelson217Posted on 2007-06-22 at 09:12:07ID: 19342590

Another way to ask the same question:

Here is some mock-up of code . . . can the path be a reference to a file server (as opposed to a path within the web server)?

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Dim pdfPath
Dim pdfFileName
Dim fullPDF

pdfPath="what goes here?"
pdfFileName="testPDF.pdf"
fullPDF = pdfPath & "/" & pdfFileName

response.write "displaying " & fullPDF & "<p>"
%>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html>
<head>
      <title>Testing display of PDF with dynamic path and name</title>
</head>

<body>
<a href="<%=fullPDF%>">link to PDF</a>
<p>
<object data="<%=fullPDF%>"
                     type="application/pdf"
                     width="800"
                     height="600">
           <a href="<%=fullPDF%>">My Other Doc (PDF)</a>
</object>

</body>
</html>

 

by: tnelson217Posted on 2007-06-22 at 09:26:40ID: 19342690

(Note that I meant to type that the files are protected by "obscurity"; my typo of "obsurity" almost sounds like "absurdity" which would also be an interesting security mechanism :-)

 

by: tnelson217Posted on 2007-06-22 at 11:38:32ID: 19343735

OK, my new idea is to stream the PDF.  But I'm getting gibberish instead of the PDF.  
(I'm happy to start a new thread if that is more appropriate; it's the same problem different tack.)

Here's the code:

<%
Const adTypeBinary = 1
Dim sPath
Dim sFile
Dim oStream

sPath = "D:\Public\eopf\images\boardimages\"
sFile = "image_test.pdf"

Set oStream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
oStream.Type = adTypeBinary
oStream.Open
oStream.LoadFromFile sPath & sFile

Response.Clear
Response.Buffer = "True"
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
Response.AddHeader "Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary"
Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition","inline;filename=" & sFile
Response.BinaryWrite oStream.Read



oStream.Close
Set oStream = Nothing
%>

And here's the first line of the output in the browser window:
%PDF-1.4 %âãÏÓ 18 0 obj << /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 19 0 R >> stream xS"\YoG~7 ÿÐÜˬHUuyDy¸£ÃKÒk` `Pì.²Ëªîê©’4ç×oF^U"Ý-

 

by: tnelson217Posted on 2007-06-22 at 12:34:31ID: 19344230

Actually, that code really did work, I was just having some path problems.  So it is definitely possible to stream the PDF to the client browser.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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