Best way to view documents remotely without copies being made on remote device reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-16 16:01 The scenario is I need to allow someone to use a laptop to show someone else some PDF documents that are stored on my server, but I don't want copies of the files to be made on the laptop. I could set it up to connect to the server via Wireguard and then open a VNC connection to access the desktop and open the PDF viewer on the server, but that gives the laptop access to a lot more than just the PDF viewer and the PDFs that it needs to display, so is there another more limited and specific service/method I could use for this task, that will only allow the laptop user to access the PDF viewer and the files in a specific folder? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KervyN · 2023-12-16 16:19 Google drive supports a read online feature. You can not download or print it. But nothing will prevent doing screenshots. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-16 16:55 Thanks but I'm looking for a self-hosted option, not one that involves sharing my confidential files with Google. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KervyN · 2023-12-16 17:14 I understand. May I ask how confidential these documents are? How bad would it be if these documents were copied and someone outside of the org got one? Because if this is a "absolutely must not happen" situation, I would advise to let these documents only be read in the office, so there will be no be no screenshots or smartphone pictures of the screen. This is something you can not prevent. If you just want to make it harder, you can go with a web conference and screen share it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoytAvila · 2023-12-16 17:47 Just wanted to let you know there is no fool proof way of distributing documents online while preventing copying/printing them. If the document is long enough im sure there is a way to show a page by page so if someone want to copy the document they need to copy each page. If you have control over that laptop im sure you can make it restrictive on the client side via some sort or an app. In sure Book DRM solutions can be helpful in your case. All you can do is make it harder by having a website with custom pdf reader that doesnt allow easy copying. Just be aware that information has already arrived at the client, if the client has full control over their device, they can do with that information whatever they want ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-16 18:43 I'm not worried about screenshots, as I trust the person who'll be using the laptop and no-one else will be able to use it to take screenshots. If I didn't trust them, I could probably lock down the laptop to prevent them taking screenshots, although I couldn't stop them using a smartphone to take photos of the screen. I just want to make sure the documents aren't stored on the laptop in case it's lost or stolen, in which case I can just deactivate the laptop's access to the server to prevent anyone using it to view the documents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KervyN · 2023-12-16 18:44 Ah ok. Then check if nextcloud offers something like this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-16 18:53 I'm not looking to distribute these documents online. I want to avoid distributing them, by using the laptop to open them on the server and just stream the server's display to the laptop, so the documents can be shown to a third party. I can lock down the laptop so the only way anyone could copy the pages is by using a smartphone to take photos of them, and it would be pretty obvious if the third party tried to do that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon-RedditAccount · 2023-12-16 19:10 *Nothing will prevent them running a screenshot app or even a video capture on HDMI.* That said, you can make PDF non-printable and non-copyable, and watermark them. Also, you can just render them on the server and show as images (with HTTP headers forbidding caching). Start with [awesome-selfhosted](https://github.com/awesome- selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted) for options. Stirling-PDF, and probably an image gallery. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TransCapybara · 2023-12-16 21:11 You'll probably need an NDA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ceminess · 2023-12-16 23:27 You could spin up something like this in a docker container https://github.com/Frooodle/Stirling-PDF Then put vpn on the laptop and allow access to just that port. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ceminess · 2023-12-16 23:31 I personally host Audiobookshelf which can also do what your asking, but might be a little overkill for your needs. https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-16 23:51 Thanks. I'll have a look at that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Froooodle · 2023-12-17 00:38 Stirling pdf dev here, sadly our tool doesn't do any file sharing or hosting and is purely a pdf operation/tool website with no multi instance file sharing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdamDhahabi · 2023-12-17 00:42 OnlyOffice Document Server, it's free, you can run it in a container. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-12-17 01:39 Doesn't that create a copy of the file in the browser cache/tempfiles though? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kmisterk · 2023-12-17 05:37 ## Post Removed Hey, Big-Finding2976! Thanks for your submission on selfhosted. Your post has been removed due to a violation of the purpose of the subreddit: **Self Hosting** ## Not Self-Hosted When it comes to posts regarding applications in this subreddit, they must feature a self-hosted tool, or a tool that *can be* self-hosted, or some kind of related information, help request, or otherwise related to a tool that is something that one can self-host. If you believe this post *is in fact* relevant to /r/selfhosted, feel free to [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to= /r/selfhosted&subject=Removed For Not Being Self- Hosted&message=[Removed Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18ju7ee/-/\)) with your concerns.