Question

Well, as everyone knows there is no way you can assign permissions for Copy/Paste of files on windows platform.

I need to control the copy process from a central file server, in a way that helps me know:

1. which user performed the copy
2. Which files were copied
3. where did he pasted them
4. Total size of data copied
5. Time of copy operation
6. If user exceeds the allowed “Copy-Limit”, a dialog box requests him to enter administrative credentials or deny him (as it would be configured)
7. Store all this data in a file for later review or send by email.

I need to collect this data by putting a utility program on the server itself, without any other installation on client computers.

I know about monitoring the Clipboard, but which clipboard would it be? the user’s clipboard or the server’s clipboard ?
And what about drag-drop operation, which doesn’t even pass through the clipboard?
Any knowledge of whether SystemFileWatcher is useful in such case ?

Any ideas ?

Answer 1

I don’t think the clipboard has anything to do with things here. The result of a “Copy and Paste” action at the client is that files are copied from a share, right? In fact, it’s not the act of “Copy” that you care about, it’s the “Paste” (A clipboard Copy of a file doesn’t do anything until you Paste it somewhere).

So, I think you should ignore clipboards all together and look for ways to monitor file access on your share.

Essentially, you’re looking for file share auditing. Windows has some of this built in, but I’m no expert. In fact, you might get more traction with this sort of question on ServerFault.com (sister site to StackOverflow.com) so long as you word it in terms of file share auditing. Oh, and you didn’t mention the OS of your server here – you should do so if you post on ServerFault.com.