External Web Access to Alfresco Repository

[vatorman99]

I am currently working on a project for my company to provide external access to our current Alfresco installation.  We are using Alfresco Community 3.2.  We would like to provide our customers access to our repository, but in such a way as to not expose our server to the internet.  I've been doing a lot of research on this subject, and haven't really found much.  I was thinking I could install the Alfresco web client, or UI, on a server that is exposed to the internet, and then have that server make a secure connection to our Alfresco repository, using JSR or RMI? 

I am fairly new to Alfresco, and my Java skills are, shall we say, beginner (but I'm learning!).  I'm just looking for a little bit of direction on where I should go with this, and what pieces I would need to put this all together.

Thank you for your time.

[mrogers]

Another option to consider is Alfresco Share.   Which can communicate with your secure alfresco repository by HTTPS .

Or you could write your own customer facing front end.   WCM may help you.

Or you could provide some secure but very limited access to your customers with, for example, a ftp connection.  

You should also be able to secure an alfresco explorer interface by careful use of a firewall and apache proxy.

[vatorman99]

Thanks mrogers, those were all helpful suggestions.

I think using apache proxy, and some firewall rules, may be our best bet in the short term.  In the long run, building a customer UI with WCM may be a cleaner solution, but more difficult to implement.  I'll have to do some more digging on these topics and figure what might work best for us.  Thanks again for your help.