I'm not sure what to do...Help

Hi everyone

I have a secure web site with SSRS 2005 installed. The service points to a backend server on our network where the databases reside and we have a firewall.

Previously we have configured our reports and data extentions to use Windows Integrated Security. Now that I have a remote install I need to switch to either forms authentication or Kerberos authentication.

Which one is the easiest to use? My guess is that doing a little coding for forms authentication is the way to go.

With forms authentication I need to create a security extention. What will that do to my custom data extention?

When using Kerberos or Forms authentication can a client still use Report Builder?

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

-JW

I can't speak to forms authentication, but Kerberos can work.

I say 'can' because if the certificates aren't 100% perfect (URL name matches cert, complete cert chain is trusted, etc), then it will fail, and Kerberos failures are painfully difficult to troubleshoot as normally the only helpful message you receive is 'access denied', with little clue why.

If the server is re-using the client's credentials to access the backend data, then you are already using Kerberos, because that's the only way it's possible to do that, using delegation. An easy way to test if Kerberos will work without having to access outside a firewall is to disable NTLM for that directory in IIS using the adsutil.vbs utility (google can assist with a sample, I don't have the syntax handy), so only the Kerberos half of Windows Authentication is enabled.

And yes, I was able to get Report Builder to work as well. Not sure what effect it might have on the custom data extension without some more details of what it does.

So, my suggestion would be to give Kerberos a try, because if it works, it'll work fairly quickly with no code required. If it gets muddy, then maybe give Forms a try. But as I said, I've never used Forms so can't help you on how.

Geof