Sharepoint Authentication for Access by a Web App

Question

I am using sharepoint solely as a repository to store and retrieve large files (~100 MBs). How can I authenticate a web application such that it can upload and download files to a document list on Sharepoint 2007 without using Windows intergrated authentication?

The web application will handle the authorization - it'll figure out which users are allowed to access the repository via integrated windows authentication and a bunch of business rules that depend on the application's state. When the user wants a file they will use the web app. The web app will then download that file on the user's behalf using some sort of credentials. I prefer that these credentials be somewhat permanent so it's password doesn't expire every so often. I was thinking of using basic authentication because the files that I'm access controlling aren't high valued files (so its poor security is tolerable), and it seems to be the simplest. What are my options?

Answer 1

I wouldn't recommend using SharePoint for this at all. Its value comes from the features it provides through its user interface. If you remove this then you are looking at an expensive and over-complicated data store.

1. SharePoint stores all data in a database. Storage for databases is more expensive than storage for files. It's more costly to configure, administer, backup, load balance, scale, etc...

2. Development time is more costly with SharePoint. It's a big and complex product that's not trivial or quick to develop against. There needs to be a solid business case and using SharePoint for its back end only isn't a good one.

Please seriously consider this approach before going down it!

Answer 2

You are better off just enabling windows auth on your web application and then setting the permissions to the folders/files.

If you do need to get just the files however...go to www.codeplex.com and search for sharepoint powershell. There is a script there to upload stuff. This could be modified to download I believe.

Answer 3

As mentioned above, using SharePoint as a repository pretty much nullifies any of its benefits. You might as well just use a database to store your content (that's what SharePoint is doing behind the scenes anyway.)