Ajax File Browser AutoLogin Microsoft Office Authentication

Question

I'm using a AjaxFileBrowser to browse WebDav files:

Each user with single credentials and associated folder. I succeeded to make user authentificate and avoid login popop in the browser.

I'm using basic authentification under SSL.

Now i tried to run files with my microsoft office application, i'm getting an authentification pop-up to be able to read/write those files.

Are there any issue to remove this authentification and make it automatic.

As it' mentionned in the official documentation i can use NTLM or Kerberos, but i will loose the first authentification step.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no way to avoid authentication dialog with Basic authentication with Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office and a web browser (or other your WebDAV client app) run in separate processes and web browser can not pass the authentication info in this case.

Here are a couple of options to totally avoid login dialog:

1. Implement MS-OFBA authentication or MS-OFBA together with Basic. See Choosing WebDAV Server Authentication Shema article to find if MS-OFBA is what you need. You can totally avoid login
   dialog in case of Internet Explorer (but not in case of other web browsers).

   Microsoft Office applications on Windows are using Internet Explorer to display the MS-OFBA login dialog. If user is logging into your website with Internet Explorer and during the login checks the "Remember me" checkbox, than permanent cookies will be shared between the IE window (withing a single website) used in Microsoft Office login dialog and IE web page displaying your website. The login dialog will not be displayed when opening the Microsoft Office document in this case.

   With other web browsers the user will get the MS-OFBA login dialog at least during the first document access. If he checks the 'Remember me' checkbox during the document access, next time the login dialog will not be presented.

   This scenario may also work with Microsoft Office for MAC, but I do not know what web browser MS Office on MAC is using inside its login dialog.

2. Implement URL authentication. Your urls will look like http://webdavserver.com/[SessionID1234567890]/path/file.docx Make sure you do not pass pass the ID as URL parameters in this case, as parameters are truncated by Microsoft Office.