Smoothwall blocking Google services

[Aidy360]

anyone else having issues with smoothwall blocking google services today

[David44]

Yes. Looking in to this now. It looks like it is just sites.google.com that is blocked under 'File Sharing' for us on both of our onsite Smoothwall boxes but as the student homepage with a load of links is hosted there, students are reporting that they are blocked from the internet.

Edited March 20 by David44

[Aidy360]

i know it sounds strange but good to hear its not just us

[6Foot3]

Not with smoothwall but had something similar yesterday.

[David44]

We have resolved/worked around this. Here are my notes on what worked for us. You may not need to enable HTTPS inspection (step 1) if you have already done so for students.

 

1. Create a new HTTPS Inspection Policy...
Who: SCHOOL Students, Unauthenticated IPs
What: Google Sites (this category already existed)
Where: Everywhere
When: Always
Action: Decrypt and inspect
Enabled: True
and move it to the top of the HTTPS Inspection Policies
This is done here... http://smoothwall.ip:81/modules/guardian3/cgi-bin/guardian/https.cgi
 

The above allows Smoothwall to see that students are going to https://sites.google.com/schoolname.sch.uk/student-site/ rather than just https://sites.google.com/

2. Create a new category called 'SCHOOL Google Sites'
and add 'sites.google.com/schoolname.sch.uk' as the only URL.
This is done here...http://smoothwall.ip:81/modules/guardian3/cgi-bin/guardian/customcategory.cgi

3. Create a new Web Filter Policy
Who: Default Users, SCHOOL Students, Unauthenticated IPs
What: SCHOOL Google Sites
Where: Everywhere
When: Always
Action: Allow
Enabled: True
and move it to the top of the Web Filter Policies
This is done here... http://smoothwall.ip:81/modules/guardian3/cgi-bin/guardian/policies.cgi
 

The above allows Students to access all sites under https://sites.google.com/schoolname.sch.uk/
 

We can reverse these changes when/if Smoothwall remove Google Sites from the File Sharing Category.
 

[tom_newton]

Apparently an issue with the publication of some new signatures. Expect it to be reverted in the next hour 

[TechMonkey]

@tom_newton Would the same be happening to Microsoft?  Having issues with Teams today, statics.teams.cdn.office.net is red in the logs, but in all the correct categories.

[tom_newton]

Not that I'm aware of, have raised 

[CSmith]

Hi all,

 

The issue should now be resolved. On-prem users may need to manually pull down the latest blocklist (System > Licences, then hit Update under 'Blocklist subscription'). Cloud filter customers shouldn't need to do anything, the latest blocklist will be automatically pulled down and installed. 

[TechMonkey]

Thanks @CSmith.  Looks like it fixed our issue too.