How to initialize file download from an external server?

Question

I have an MVC controller method defined like this:

public ActionResult GetPdf(string filename)
        {
            var pdfDownload = File(\"~/Content/Gene         


        

Answer 1

You could just redirect the user at the remote report; if that isn't an option, you will need to proxy it:

byte[] blob;
using(var client = new WebClient()) {
    blob = client.DownloadData(remoteUrl);
}
return File(blob, "application/pdf", "report1.pdf");

the above assumed the file isn't very big; a more robust implementation would fetch and send in chunks.