How might YouTube be blocked on our network???

[HappyAdmin]

Hi All,

 

I took over here (a Lancashire high school) about 18 months ago and YouTube is blocked on our Curriculum network. Any attempt to access youtube from that network gives an error. On Chrome this is "This site can't be reached. The connections was reset. ... ERR_CONNECTION_RESET". Similarly inaccessible on IE.

 

We are connected to our County's fibre, which has Lightspeed as part of the package, but this is NOT the error which results from a standard Lightspeed block - that is a page I've customised in Lightspeed with our school logo etc., inviting me to log in and override. I've had a look through Lightspeed, and I can't see anything there which seems likely to be causing this.

 

I want to turn on YouTube for students, in restricted mode, by using the DNS CNAME method (see https://support.google.com/a/answer/6214622). I can then use GAPPS to give staff approval privileges for individual videos and channels, HOWEVER, I can't work out how the above total ban has been enforced. I bet this is a known education admin trick, and I'm hoping someone can give me a clue...

 

I initially thought it must be in DNS, but I can't see anything that doesn't refer to the local network in DNS on the (Windows Server 2012 R2) DNS server for this network. I receive a basically similar error on Windows machines or Chromebooks connected to this network, so this can't be AD group policy related.

 

Can anyone throw me a bone on where to start looking to un-pick the old block before configuring the new semi-block?

 

Many thanks if you can!

Ben

[IrritableTech]

Lightspeed can cause this with secure sites. With an insecure site it will respond with the blocked page, however it simply breaks the connection on https sites. Try another secure site you know to be blocked to confirm.

 

tumblr.com is blocked on our lightspeed rocket

 

I'd be speaking with your provider.

Edited July 26, 2016 by IrritableTech

[Steve21]

That looks like the error that we got by RMs/SWGFL HTTPS inspection when the cert wasn't installed.

 

You checked if you're under RM when you say LEA that you got those certs installed?

 

Steve

[HappyAdmin]

Thanks guys, I'll look into it further when I've got time again.

 

B

[MatthewL]

DNS came to mind for me, but have you checked the hosts file on a PC in question just incase that has been modified to block it.

[Guest MD5T]

DNS came to mind for me, but have you checked the hosts file on a PC in question just incase that has been modified to block it.

 

Host files are ignored when computers are behind proxy servers

[free780]

You could do a NS lookup of YouTube.com then if you have DNS outgoing access on your firewall try Google's dns. Host files are resolved when using a proxy but would cause issues with mismatch hostnames and IPs.

[Duke5A]

Youtube is most likely being redirected and you can't simply redirect an HTTPS page. That is why you're seeing what that error message. Try browsing to YouTube with an HTTP:// in front of it first. Whatever is redirecting you should intercept the request before it reaches YouTube and you should be served the redirect page.

[Zammo]

Host files are ignored when computers are behind proxy servers

 

Not always:

 

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/narend/2012/12/19/hosts-file-gets-ignored-by-browser-when-behind-proxy-server/