Windows 2008 R2 file share - any way to "lock it down" outside of a 3rd party app?

Posted by TheCleaner on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by TheCleaner
Published on 2013-06-27T14:48:24Z Indexed on 2013/06/27 16:23 UTC
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I have a 3rd party app that "makes a call" to write files to a file share on our network using the currently logged in credentials of the Windows domain user. Meaning the 3rd party app doesn't pass the apps credentials but simply issues a behind the scenes copy command to take a source file specified and copy/move it to the destination "repository" on the file share. The basic premise is that it keeps revisions/approvals for Document Control (think svn/git I guess, similar to this question: Lock down Windows folder to only be updatable by SVN).

This all works fine...but here's my issue:

I need a way to lock down the file share from being accessed/modified outside of using the 3rd party app (meaning prevent explorer/word/excel/etc from getting to that share).

I know I can do the following:

  • make the share a hidden share ($) - this definitely helps. Most users would have zero clue on how to get to such a share. Solves probably 95% of my issue.
  • go one step further and set the "Hidden" attribute on the folders in the hidden share - this would go a little further in that even if a user knows the path to the hidden share like \\server\hidden$ they still won't see folders in that share without changing their explorer options to "show hidden files/folder

Any other ideas on how I can lock this down? The users still need modify rights to this share/folders since the 3rd party app relies on their Windows permissions to that location when copying the files into it. I can't really use 3rd party tools to password protect the folder/share without causing the 3rd party app functions to fail.

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