*URGENT* - Your connection is not private - Chrome - teacher at another school...

[Koldov]

I have a teacher frantically emailing me (from her phone) because she has gone to another school to do some important thing...

 

Unfortunately she cannot use the internet at this other school, despite being given the Wi-Fi password to use!

 

It might be that they have some sort of captive portal/SSL or HTTPS inspection set-up on their filtering that needs a certificate installing?

 

She gets this screen in Chrome:

 

 

I've told her to ask, but I figure if they've given her the wi-fi password they should have told her if there was anything else - unless they don't know and it's all done by magic (IT dept)...

 

Any ideas what they need to do?

[Boredguy]

Likely needs the SSL certificate installed for their filtering.

Our users had this all the time on our SWGfL connection on their personal devices, but I've since adjusted our BYoD range to not use it to get round the issue of having to tell people how to install it.

[ITGuyNW]

They should be asking their IT surely rather than frantically emailing you? I guess it's like you said it's some captive portal that isn't forwarding

[Koldov]

I've told her to ask around, but it may be that the teachers don't really know and they might not have IT on-site...?

 

I just wanted some back-up that what I was telling her was right.

 

And it was...

 

Just had this email after I said to ask someone:

 

"I just have done...It's something to do with the certificates. I'm not sure. But they have a spare laptop I can use anyway."

 

EDIT: I am just about to pull the trigger on SSL/HTTPS inspection, so I'll have this to deal with here soon...

Edited April 14, 2021 by Koldov

[Davit2005]

I've told her to ask around, but it may be that the teachers don't really know and they might not have IT on-site...?

 

I just wanted some back-up that what I was telling her was right.

 

And it was...

 

Just had this email after I said to ask someone:

 

"I just have done...It's something to do with the certificates. I'm not sure. But they have a spare laptop I can use anyway."

 

EDIT: I am just about to pull the trigger on SSL/HTTPS inspection, so I'll have this to deal with here soon...

 

With managed devices it should be easy enough to deploy a certificate. We also had the enterprise network hidden then GPO set for managed devices to connect to it. Worked well enough and meant that the only wireless that would pop up for guests was the guest network.

 

 

 

For BYOD at a previous place we had a link on the Captive portal to an area they could get to for the certificate which worked well enough.

[Andrew_C]

For BYOD at a previous place we had a link on the Captive portal to an area they could get to for the certificate which worked well enough.

Yeah, it works here... IF the IT dept were to have told ALL the users!

[Hybrid]

If it's a smoothwall box and she's tech savvy enough, get her to go to the MITM page and download/install the cert.

 

Direct her over to the phone to do an ipconfig and find out the default gateway.

 

Then in a browser ask her to type in http://xx.xx.xx.xx/getmitm

 

If it's a Smoothwall box that should prompt to install the cert.

 

If she's not very tech savvy or has access to a command prompt/network setting.... good luck

[Koldov]

Absolutely not tech savvy...

 

Can standard users (locked down so no CMD anyway) install certificates?

 

Anyway, day is done now so no worries but maybe someone could explain this...

 

"It's just strange that I can use the internet on my school laptop on the tabs I already had open and send emails"

[jmak]

Yeah, it works here... IF the IT dept were to have told ALL the users!

Have you got "favourites" who you always forget to tell about changes? [emoji57]

 

(I'm assuming as you are the IT dept, you have favourites who always swear blind that they never received the instructions that were sent by group email, notified in staff meetings, posted on the staff room notice board and 95% of the staff manage fine with.)

[Andrew_C]

Have you got "favourites" who you always forget to tell about changes? [emoji57]

 

(I'm assuming as you are the IT dept, you have favourites who always swear blind that they never received the instructions that were sent by group email, notified in staff meetings, posted on the staff room notice board and 95% of the staff manage fine with.)

No; I do a lot less IT stuff now. They told pupils & teachers. Of course, those are the only people who are in school...

[ibpalle]

If it's a smoothwall box and she's tech savvy enough, get her to go to the MITM page and download/install the cert.

 

Direct her over to the phone to do an ipconfig and find out the default gateway.

 

Then in a browser ask her to type in http://xx.xx.xx.xx/getmitm

 

 

Just a note that the URL now can also be reached on http://ip.of.smoothwall/getcert