Design report in iReport using server datasource

[tonyw]

Hi,

I'm in the process of attempting to evaluate the free/community offerings for a small reporting job, and I'm not sure if the scenario I'm envsaging is correct or even possible.

I have set up JasperReports Server (cp-4.7.0) and have set up a datasource to MySQL db on the same network.

If I expose the server over the internet, is it possible for a third party (i.e. someone connecting over the internet with no direct access to the network hosting the database), to use iReport to connect to this server and design reports to run against this datasource?

I've tried this using iReport 5, which allows me to see the server and its datasources in the repository navigator, but I cannot figure out how to run a report against one of these datasources. There is an 'Import JDBC datasource' option, but all that does is copy the connection details which the server is using, which doesn't work if the iReport user is working remotely from the database.

Any help appreciated, and apologies if this question has been asked before, but I cannot an answer (or at least one I recognise as such) in the archives.