ssrs 401 unauthorized error in report viewer

Question

Hi have a windows server with sql server reporting services installed. The link to report server is like http://servername/reports.
When I go the link it asks me to enter the username and password, which are the login username and password for that windows server.(Windows authentication SSRS). Now I want to completely remove any type of authentication from ssrs. e.g if anyone goes to that link he can view any report or folder in it.

How to do that?

EDIT:

I am not providing direct access to SSRS server. instead I am creating a .net mvc web application which displays reports from ssrs in a embedded report viewer. And I am getting 401 unauthorized error. The link to ssrs server will be hidden. SO is there any way to remove that 401 error?

Answer 1

It seems like you are looking for Anonymous Authentication.

This is not something I would recommend and it is not supported according to MSDN (see Unsupported Authentication Methods in Authentication with the Report Server)

The report server will not accept unauthenticated requests from an anonymous user, except for those deployments that include a custom authentication extension.

Report Builder will accept unauthenticated requests if you enable Report Builder access on a report server that is configured for Basic authentication.

For all other cases, anonymous requests are rejected with an HTTP Status 401 Access Denied error before the request reaches ASP.NET. Clients receiving 401 Access Denied must reformulate the request with a valid authentication type.

The "except for those deployments that include a custom authentication extension" part would suggest you can do it by creating an extension but I don't think it is a good idea.

If you want to get rid of the login prompts, you should instead configure your client browser to use Windows credentials of the currently connected user, and set appropriate rights on SSRS side.