Question

I have a scenario where a user will have access to a one-time-url.
When the user clicks on the URL, specific files will be available to that user.

I have many files on the site but would only like certain files to be accessible by that user.

I have though about generating an authenticated cookie and using forms based auth and applying permissions to a certain folder, but I need authorization on indiviual files. and the files will constintly be changing.

What would be the best way to give a user only access to specific files? (I won’t display the other files, but I still do not want other files available if they are typed in the URL)

Answer 1

I would create an .ashx (handler file) and have that serve the files to the user (load into memory and then write the contents out by pushing the file to the content stream). That way the end user never has permissions to the actual files on the system but can still access them. Your code can then control when and how long each file is available to a user.