Can an Application Page Permissions Be Set from SharePoint Foundation 2010?

Question

Apologies up front... I'm quite new to SharePoint.

I'm developing an application page in SharePoint because what I'm doing is a lot of custom development, AJAX/jQuery external database, custom widgets etc.

By using the application page, I can tap into SharePoint to use it's security fro authenticating users, however, I don't see my custom application anywhere in any administration pages of SharePoint Foundation (SPF) 2010 or SharePoint Designer (SD) in regards to setting page permissions. Where in SPF2010 or SD can you go to set permissions for a custom application page? Or is it not possible via the GUI and I need to hard-code the groups/users permitted to see/use this page in the page itself?

Thx!

Answer 1

Permissions for application pages are normally set within the application page itself, using the RightsRequired property.

Here's a comprehensive blog post about Application Page security:

http://blog-sharepoint.blogspot.com/2011/10/sharepoint-application-page-security.html

Answer 2

Your custom application page is probably being deployed to the _layouts folder, and therefore isn't part of your site collection, rather its on the farm. At this level you'll need to handle authentication within your page. You could build a separate application page to configure the groups as needed.

An alternative, and my preferred method, is to throw the page into the SitePages folder. Once there you can manage permissions like any other file in the library. I usually use a web part page in the SitePages folder and then use a separate user control for my actual functionality.

HTH