Creating download link to a file on a file server

I'm looking for a way to (easily, by preference ;)) create a download link to a file on a separate file server.

The situation is as follows: the application I'm developing (asp.net 2.0 in vb.net but I have a similar issue in c#, either solution works for me) will be run internally for a company. As is good practice, the file storage and web application are on two separate servers.

I basically need to be able to create a download link to a file, the only available URL i have to access the file is \servername\folder1\folder2\folder3\file.txt (can be any sort of file)

Weblinks simply don't work. This is how it's currently set up:

tablerowfield.Text = String.Format(
    "<a href=""\\servername\folder1\folder2\folder3\{0}"" 
        target=""_blank"">Click me</a>",
    filename)

Which doesn't work for obvious reasons. It used to be set up to write that file to the application p开发者_如何学Goath itself and that worked perfectly, but it isn't good practice and that's why I'm changing it (or trying to).

I read solutions about creating a download page and then having a table in your DB which holds the links and returns the proper web URL for download but the time constraint I am faced with unfortunately doesn't allow me to develop that.

Assuming I can provide a string with the full filepath to the file like the above, what is the easiest way to just create a link that, when clicked, downloads the document?

Note: I have 0 admin rights in this environment. That really isn't helping me. Let's assume I am given the correct link like above and have the appropriate file access rights and such.

UPDATE:

The above example does work in IE, but not in Firefox and Chrome. IE converts it to a file://servername/... link which does what it's supposed to, but FF and Chrome both actively decided that this is unsafe and have disabled it from their browsers.

---

You can use ASHX file (say, downloadfile.ashx) and use the following code (not tested, but it will be something like that) in it:

 Response.Clear();
 Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
 Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=abc.txt");                                            
 Response.WriteFile(Server.MapPath("\\servername\folder1\folder2\folder3\abc.txt"));
 Response.End();

and then use this in your anchor tag like:

<a href="downloadfile.ashx"  target=""_blank"">Click me</a>

Note: You can also pass parameters for downloading different files like:

<a href="downloadfile.ashx?file=abc.txt"  target=""_blank"">Click me</a>

and then, in ashx file, use the file name to download the appropriate file.

---

this piece of code will create a file in download folder with name=hi.txt and content as "thanks god, finally file got downloaded."

 Response.Clear();
 Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
 Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=hi.txt");
 Response.Write("thanks god, finally file got downloaded.");
 Response.End();

---

If your file is already there on server then you can use this code in your download button click event like this

protected void downloadpdf_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Response.Clear();
    Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
    Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=""downloadName.pdf""");
    Response.WriteFile(Server.MapPath(@"~/path of pdf/actualfile.pdf"));
    Response.End();
}

---

\\servername\folder1\folder2\folder3\... is an UNC path which cannot be used from a browser. Because the file(s) are on a separate server, you need an href attribute of the form http://server-name/folder1/folder2/file.txt.

If the server-name is unresolvable by the clients, then you need to first get the IP address of the server and then formulate the href of the form: http://10.1.1.30/folder1/folder2/file.txt

Here is how you get the IP address from server-name:

IPAddress[] host;
host = Dns.GetHostAddresses("server-name");
string ip = host[0].ToString();         

EDIT:

I basically need to be able to create a download link to a file

With the ashx solution your application would be reading the file from the server and relaying it to the clients rather than just providing the clients a link to download the file directly from the file server.