Chromecast/Cast for education not working with Ruckus

[Tammie]

Hi all

 

I have to bite the bullet and try to find out why we can't get Chromecasts or Google Cast for Education to work. We have Ruckus and Smoothwall, and I'm not sure where the problem lies to even ask the right person. I was wondering if anyone knows?

 

Once I've set the Chromecast up, it can connect to our wireless but it can't connect to the internet. I've had a look in Smoothwall and I can't see anything being blocked in there, so I don't think it's that, but I could be wrong. When we try using Cast for Education, I can cast from a wired PC to a Chromebook, but not the other way round, leading me to think it's to do with the wireless. Obviously that's no good, as you'd want to cast to a device connected to a projector.

 

I spoke to the guys on the Ruckus stand before we went ahead and they said it wouldn't be an issue, but I don't know where to go from here really. One option is to have the Chromecasts having totally unfiltered connection from SWGfL?

 

If anyone has any experience to share I'd be grateful!

 

Tammie

[ADMaster]

I'd start by giving the chromecast full access just to remove one of the variables.

If that works figure out what is getting blocked.

 

Are the wired and wireless PCs on the same vlan?

I'm not sure how well cast for edu works across vlans / subnets, but fairly certain you need to be signed in with a GAFE account.

I had a teacher here trying to use a bit of software (don't recall the name) that cast her or the students device to the board.

I had to setup a bonjour gateway between staff and student vlan in ruckus. I'm sure the chromecast will be similr in that aspect and needs a gateway.

In my case it also had to be setup / assigned per AP so I just did it for the one in her classroom.

[Tammie]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I'll give them full access, start there. We have GAFE accounts, so in theory it should have worked, good suggestion though.

 

Yes, they're all on the same VLAN, and so are the Chromecasts, so if I understand correctly no need for Bonjour gateway, but do correct me if I'm wrong!

[EricM_NetCtrl]

Hi Tammie, have you tried enabling Multicast routing / PIM on your core switch?

 

Regards

 

Eric

[Tammie]

Hi Eric, thanks for your reply. That rings a bell actually, I'm sure that's what they mentioned when I was at BETT. I'm not sure how to do that or if it's been done, but I can ask.

[DJ-1701]

As per the South Central Meet yesterday, as the Chromecasts didn't appear to be contactable after inital WiFi configuration, the wonderful @LeMarchand (which hopefully managed to escape for the Train Station) suggested checking DNS for any conflicts and removing old records.

 

Another question as I think about it... as this is a SWGfL connection, do you have a transparent proxy setup by the grid, allowing basic student Internet access without the need for proxy settings?

 

Another thing that crops up in my mind... could this have anything to do with SSL interception by SWGfL (RM) for the Google domains and possibly need the RM certificate installed?

[markwilfan]

From memory chromecasts require Google dns to be accessible so worth a check that you can use 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

[Tammie]

Hi both, thank you for your messages. Sorry, been off for the summer!

@DJ-1701 I remember us talking about removing old DNS records, but I don't know how to do that? I've done some reading, found this where it talks about 'Scavenge stale resource records' and 'Enable automatic scavenging of stale records' - but are unticked. Should they be ticked?

 

We don't have transparent proxy, but I had requested unfiltered access for the IP reservations I'd set from SWGfL. I see the Chromecasts are still not picking up those addresses, which I take it is where the old DNS record removal comes in...

 

We do have the RM certificate for our Google domain, so hopefully that should be ok.

 

Mark - thanks for the suggestion, I'll check that.

 

Tammie

[DJ-1701]

Hi both, thank you for your messages. Sorry, been off for the summer!

@DJ-1701 I remember us talking about removing old DNS records, but I don't know how to do that? I've done some reading, found this where it talks about 'Scavenge stale resource records' and 'Enable automatic scavenging of stale records' - but are unticked. Should they be ticked?

 

To give credit where it's due, it was the ever wise @LeMarchand that spoke about this. By default they are unticked when you setup your DNS, but most of us have those settings ticked to clear out any addresses that are being hogged. 7 days is usally typical.

 

We don't have transparent proxy, but I had requested unfiltered access for the IP reservations I'd set from SWGfL. I see the Chromecasts are still not picking up those addresses, which I take it is where the old DNS record removal comes in...

 

Just to check, the IP reservations, have you set them up on you local DHCP server for the Chrome Cast MAC addresses?

 

We do have the RM certificate for our Google domain, so hopefully that should be ok.

 

If you don't get any joy from the above, it might be worth checking with SWGfL to ensure the IP addresses don't get SSL intercepted as well, since they may be expecting the correct certificate from Google, rather than the RM certificate which may need to be installed on the Chrome Cast.

[Tammie]

Well thank you very much @LeMarchand for your wisdom! And thanks for your replies @DJ-1701 - much appreciated.

 

We did get to the bottom of it in the end, there was a problem with the was our DNS was set up, which was why the Chromecasts weren't picking up the static IPs with unfiltered access. Once that was sorted, it all worked. Phew!

[LeMarchand]

Well thank you very much @LeMarchand for your wisdom! And thanks for your replies @DJ-1701 - much appreciated.

 

Yay! Glad you got it working.