Intranet local file reference

[Ga Bowen]

I'm creating an intranet and I want to link to some files on our server.

I have created some links (using the Internet Link option) with the format file:///SERVER:\filename\document.pdf

It works with an ebook, but not HTML.

What am I doing wrong?

[Simon_Dismore]

file:///SERVER:\filename\document.pdf works with an ebook, but not HTML

Could be file permissions, e.g. maybe your domain identity is being communicated when you use the ebook, but not when you use the browser directly.

If you are already running a web server on your network, it might be better to set up the pdf folder as a virtual directory of the intranet site (see e.g. Understanding Sites, Applications, and Virtual Directories on IIS 7 and How to access network files from IIS applications). That way the server knows the file location, but the client just uses a conventional HTTP URL. This might simplify versioning too.

[Tim Green]

Hi Ga,

Almost all web servers forbid references outside the server's web space with file:/// references, for excellent security reasons. Generally, the only way to link to files on a web server is to put them inside its web space and then link to them with normal http:// web links.

[Ga Bowen]

file:///SERVER:\filename\document.pdf works with an ebook, but not HTML

Could be file permissions, e.g. maybe your domain identity is being communicated when you use the ebook, but not when you use the browser directly.

If you are already running a web server on your network, it might be better to set up the pdf folder as a virtual directory of the intranet site (see e.g. Understanding Sites, Applications, and Virtual Directories on IIS 7 and How to access network files from IIS applications). That way the server knows the file location, but the client just uses a conventional HTTP URL. This might simplify versioning too.

OK, I'll look into that.

Cheers, Simon.

[Ga Bowen]

Hi Ga,

Almost all web servers forbid references outside the server's web space with file:/// references, for excellent security reasons. Generally, the only way to link to files on a web server is to put them inside its web space and then link to them with normal http:// web links.

OK.

Sorry, I'm not very good at this, but is this where Help & Manual 2 Go Server can help, or is that purely for testing?

[Tim Green]

Sorry, I'm not very good at this, but is this where Help & Manual 2 Go Server can help, or is that purely for testing?

You an also implement HM2Go as part of your WebHelp but that won't help you here either: Like all web servers it can only see its own web space, which in the case of HM2Go is only anything inside the folder containing your WebHelp files. All web servers only see one directory on the server along with all its subdirectories, which is defined as their web space. This prevents normal web users from being able to access system folders.

[Simon_Dismore]

All web servers only see one directory on the server along with all its subdirectories

I'm not expert, but I'm not sure that's strictly true for IIS. One of those links I posted earlier says:

...an application can have more than one virtual directory. For example, you might use a virtual directory when you want your application to include images from another location in the file system, but you do not want to move the image files into the physical directory that is mapped to the application's root virtual directory.

So that might be a solution if Ga Bowen is in a Windows environment, assuming that all the PDFs in the destination folder are intended to be available from the webhelp.