extRS Portal: a modern SSRS client

ExtRS Portal provides a blueprint for extending the functionality of Reporting Services 

 

extRS (pronounced, "extras") is a modern SSRS client for distributing and reading reports; with some extras. A demo of the app is linked here: https://extrs.net

   

The audience is SSRS report users (you know, the people you need to justify having enterprise reporting in the first place). So things like applying item-level RS security, managing users, and adding, editing and deleting SSRS catalog items and other system-level properties are not part of this client- at least not yet.

The aim here is to make SSRS at least slightly more interesting, accessible and useable for information consumers. This particuliar deployment of the extRS.Portal web client is connected to a report server with custom authentication (extRSAuth) which gets passed the normally required "Windows authentication" hamstring of the default SSRS installation. 

This wrapper and extension UI not only improve the user authentication experience and dynamism of SSRS parameter behaviors in the UI but also provide SSRS admins and other users with rich enterprise reporting usage and delivery data.

Enabled are the most of the features contained in Reporting Service's built-in Report Portal at /reports.

I have disabled some things like deleting and uploading items for the sake of keeping my demo of the app small and simple.

The source code can be found here: https://github.com/sonrai-LLC/extRS

An SSRS IFrame/CORS infinite redirect loop error and a quick and easy solution

The redirect loop looks like this and, in Edge, will display the error message: "[domain] redirected you too many times"

If you are trying to render the SSRS ReportViewer control within an <iframe>, you may run into a CORS issue that manifests in a series of 302 (Found) responses and an infinite redirect loop between ReportViewer control (ReportViewer.aspx) and Logon.aspx.

As of SSRS 2022, without an explicit instruction to allow CORS, ReportViewer cannot be rendered within an <iframe> on an origin different than the origin of the report server.

If you are using custom authentication, the solution is easy enough. Just add cookieSameSite="None" and enableCrossAppRedirects="true" to the authentication <forms> tag in the report server's web.config.

 <authentication mode="Forms">  
   <forms loginUrl="logon.aspx" name="sqlAuthCookie" cookieSameSite="None" timeout="60" path="/" enableCrossAppRedirects="true" requireSSL="true">  
   </forms>   
 </authentication>  

You may also need to enable CORS in your client app. In ASP.NET Core 8, this can be achieved through the following in your application startup code:

 app.UseCors(builder => builder  
 .WithOrigins("https://localhost", "https://[domain]")  
 .AllowAnyMethod()  
 .AllowAnyHeader());