Looking for suggestions on how to download files from a server.

[UJ]

My client has a product that downloads files from it's web server. It then
will display these on a local machine. Problem is that this is on the
customer's network which means, depending on the customer, they may have
secured the network down like crazy. To the point that may have no open
ports, can't send data across to our server, ...

My network engineer has essentially said we need to have the following
criteria:

1. We can't hard code a port - and we don't even know if there's a port we
can use (Doesn't this mean we can't do it?) Preferably we need to go out and
find the port dynamically.
2. We can't send any information to the web server - (but how do we
authentication and whatnot then?) This also means something like a web
service is out.
3.They may have a content cache server so even if we send down files, they
may not be updated immediately because they are still in the cache.

So I'm at a lose. Can anybody make any suggestions on how to solve this?
Everytime I suggest having them open a port my network engineer has a cow.
(I'm getting to the point to say that then he should solve the problem.) He
keeps bringing up that somehow Symantec can do it so we need to be able to
do it.

ANY help would be appreciated because I'm at a total lose.

Jeffrey.

[Wajahat Abbas]

Well.. Jeffrey.

Go for .Net WebClient object, its very handy. It just need a web connection,
either provided by any network, dial up whatever. This provides you to
download web file using two methods 1) DownloadData Method 2)Download File

In these two methods what you have to do, is to provide the URL where you
mention the file URL , and it just download the file using HTTP protocol, and
if file is place in some restricted site (sites which need domain username
password) you can also provide the network credential using WebClient Object.

Explore this i am definite that this will provide ease to you.
--
Wajahat Abbas
http://www.dotnetpakistan.com
http://www.wajahatabbas.com
"UJ" wrote:

My client has a product that downloads files from it's web server. It then
will display these on a local machine. Problem is that this is on the
customer's network which means, depending on the customer, they may have
secured the network down like crazy. To the point that may have no open
ports, can't send data across to our server, ...

My network engineer has essentially said we need to have the following
criteria:

1. We can't hard code a port - and we don't even know if there's a port we
can use (Doesn't this mean we can't do it?) Preferably we need to go out and
find the port dynamically.
2. We can't send any information to the web server - (but how do we
authentication and whatnot then?) This also means something like a web
service is out.
3.They may have a content cache server so even if we send down files, they
may not be updated immediately because they are still in the cache.

So I'm at a lose. Can anybody make any suggestions on how to solve this?
Everytime I suggest having them open a port my network engineer has a cow.
(I'm getting to the point to say that then he should solve the problem.) He
keeps bringing up that somehow Symantec can do it so we need to be able to
do it.

ANY help would be appreciated because I'm at a total lose.

Jeffrey.