Create "clickable" link for UNC path

[blewis]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to Confluence and I'm curious if it's possible to create a "clickable" link to a UNC share on one of my pages. I've tried creating one using the "Link" and web link option on my page, but that doesn't seem to work. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Davin Studer · Accepted solution]

You can do it with a "Web link". Highlight the content and then click the link link button and put the UNC path in this format. file://///path/to/unc/share. Yes, you need five slashes at the beginning. The first three are part of the protocol file:/// (yes, indeed it is supposed to have three ... unlike the two in http, https, ftp, etc.). The next two are the first part of the unc path switched from backslashes to slashes.

HUGE CAVEAT!!!

This will only work by default in Internet Explorer and only if the user is on the same network as the UNC path. Meaning, this will not work for a publicly accessible site. This will only work for an internal intranet-ish site. Only IE has the file protocol turned on by default. You can get extensions for Firefox and Chrome that will enable it.

Chrome Extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/locallinks/fkkidcgelfcjmebocoaicnelkbnpgpmm

Firefox Extension
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/?src=search

[Rebeccah Quevedo-Prastein]

We have a corporate wiki that is powered by Atlassian (I have no idea what version, I'll see if I can find out after posting), but this does not work on our wiki.  I think it used to, but I'm not sure.  When I prefix the unc  path with 5 slashes, the wiki truncates it to 2 (if I entered forward slashes), or 3 (if I entered backward slashes).  I can't figure out how to get it to generate the correct URL.  I do know that the 5-slash URL works in my browser; I've tried that independently.

Rebeccah

[Rebeccah Quevedo-Prastein]

Confluence 3.4.9 is our version, evidently.  So, we're not exactly current.

Rebeccah

[Davin Studer]

When you enter the UNC path to the file it should look like the below screenshot. The below screenshot is actually 5.5.6, so it will probably look somewhat different in 3.4.9. Unfortunately, I do not have a system on 3.x so I cannot say for certain if it will work with 3.x. But if it will work it would probably look something like the below screenshot ... I imagine.

image2016-5-11 10:16:49.png

[Rebeccah Quevedo-Prastein]

Yeah, I did that, I tried 6 ways from Sunday.  I also tried the markdown link \[URL\] and \[displaytext|URL\], and using the \{html\} macro to insert an \<a href="URL"\>displaytext\</a\> hyperlink.  No matter how I created it, the page ended up with all but two or three of the leading slashes removed from the link URL, depending on whether I entered the URL with forward slashes or backward slashes.

[Davin Studer]

Unfortunately, I have not way to try it out myself. It could be that you might need to upgrade to be able to do this.

[Rebeccah Quevedo-Prastein]

And,... I found out the answer!  I had to put our wiki server in my IE Trusted Zone.  Apparently, the browsers have started blocking links to file shares from web pages by default, for security reasons.

[Steven Sheldon]

This seems to work, but requires reformatting the link, which is unacceptable.

I have loads of legacy documents that list the UNC path as, for example:

\\hsvnt282\incoming\V108\

I want to copy-paste these into a Confluence document.  I do not want to have to re-type every UNC path to add file:/// to the front and convert all the "\" characters to "/" characters.

Is there not a way to  copy-paste UNC paths into Confluence and have them recognized for what they are?  It works in a Word document...

[Davin Studer]

There is no way to just cut and paste it. Most browsers don't even support UNC path's natively, so it would not make sense for them to build that into the application.

[Manish Singh]

There is another way. Copy your UNC path for example \\hsvnt282\incoming\V108\ in Firefox and press Enter. Firefox will automatically convert it into the appropriate format:

file://///hsvnt282/incoming/V108/

Worked for me.

[Ed Letifov _TechTime - New Zealand_]

The Chrome plugin link is dead. Perhaps this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enable-local-file-links/nikfmfgobenbhmocjaaboihbeocackld

[Elena_Lurye]

1. Find a path to the given file OR folder.   (i.e.  \\path\test\test1\test2 more text ) 
2. Replace the "\\"   with    "File://"             (i.e.  File://path\test\test1\test2 more text)
3. Replace all " \ " with " / "                         (i.e.  File://path\test\test1\test2 more text)
4. Use " %20 " for spaces                         (i.e.  File://path\test\test1\test2%20more%20text )
   
   

NOTE:

Use of other non-alphanumeric characters may require special encoding like "  " = "%20"  as noted above.  
Try to keep file and folder names simple AND/OR use of "_" (Underscore) instead of a space. It may make it easier to create links.
Note that the resulting link does NOT end with an extra " / ". 

[blewis]

Thank you Davin!

[Davin Studer]

If an answer works for you then you can click the check next to that answer to mark the question as answered.