Third Party application blocked LEA firewall

[Chipie]

Hi all,

 

I hope I'm posting in the most appropriate forum. We have a company that is developing an app and looking to trial in schools. We are currently trialling it in our (private) school and I have been asked to help with the technical side of installations as they will be trialling in LEA schools. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the protocol of third party app/program installations in these schools so was wondering if anyone can shed some light onto this. We have this week installed in a school, the desktop app has to contact their servers in order to check the login credentials are correct. This was fine, but the app would go no further and wouldn't download the course material further. Working with one of the ICT co-ordinators (one of the teachers, who isn't very technical) we discovered that the teachers have to log into a web portal in order to allow them to access to more websites. Once the teacher entered their credentials, the app would then work properly. I am concerned that each time a pupil will use the app, the teacher will first have to enter their credentials so that the app isn't blocked by the firewall (I'm assuming that its an LEA firewall the the teacher has logged into).

 

What steps should be taken in order to install third party desktop apps in order to add them to the "safe apps list" so that the pupils will be able to use it without the teachers having to insert their credentials each time? Is there a process that the app development would need to go through to allow it to be certified as a safe app by the LEA to allow it to work through the firewall?

 

Thanks in advance

[ijk]

The procedures will be different from LA to LA and from school to school. Speaking as a network manager I would like the app developer to include in the system requirements that access to a set of listed URLs or domains is required. I don't think you can do more than that.

[Michael]

It sounds like filtering is based per user, rather than per computer. As a general rule, all traffic needs to go down ports 80 and 443 with a managed service. Any other port (most likely) will need opening upon request.