open a network file from an intranet web application

Question

I am currently building an intranet applicaiton using asp.net mvc and I am wondering if there is a way to link to a file or folder available on the network.

I tried simply

<a href="G:/folder/">open folder</a>

But obviously that won't work as it just gives the output: file:///G:/folder/ which doesn't actually open to anywhere. I understand that this is for security and that is fine, i am jsut wondering if there are any workaround or anything in an intranet setup? Would impersonation of any type possibly work? Any other ideas?

Answer 1

You could open that file from the server, and serve it to the client. Your web server will act as a proxy. If the files are accessible to the server, and there are no special permissions for the users, or if you can encode those permissions in roles or business rules, then it's quite easy.