Allow user to open file in Windows file system only if they can see the file in an SSRS report

Question

We have a repository with two parts:

File System: holds documents (PDFs) in folders divided by date added.
 SQL Server: holds metadata and the path of each document. (User permissions
             would be based on the metadata held here).

The file system is presently locked down so nobody has access. We are hoping to grant users access to files via a SSRS report. The report would query the database and return a list of only the documents that the user should have access to.

How would we grant permissions to the user only for the files retreived by the report?

Thank you!

Answer 1

I think SSRS in this is a red herring. It sounds like what you really want is how to secure the file system based on the results of a SQL query. (SSRS doesn't really have any functionality that will help with this.)

Implementing this through a custom web interface is certainly possible and sounds like a good answer if the using a browser for file access is acceptable. Give the service account permissions to access all the files and then return only the files appropriate for the connecting user. ( Sounds like a straight forward development project. If the requirements are simple enough, then this could be completed in a few days. Of course, make sure you use secure coding practices, since security matters in this application. )