Daft Smoothwall Problem - All groups banned except Default

[ssiruuk2]

We have Smoothwall SG2008 and all the kids are mapped to the Default users group, they can access the internet fine.

 

I am trying to map our staff to another group such as F or G etc but no staff account can access any website. They get the Smoothwall block page saying "Reason:Your username is not allowed to web browse" - Group: F / Catagory: Banned Users

 

No doubt this is just me not configuring something correctly but I can't see for looking how to allow other Groups access through the Smoothwall.

 

Thanks

[tom_newton]

Possibly:

Guardian/Authentication/Settings - there's selections for blocked/filtered/unfiltered there.

 

That's the sort of n00b error I still make occasionally ;-P

[ssiruuk2]

Ahh see I knew I was being useless / blind!

 

Thanks Tom

[ahuxham]

I wonder if Tom has a (if title = smoothwall* than subscribe) command embedded somewhere, always prompt, and always exact!

[tom_newton]

I don't have any automated methods... but I do have a team of highly trained owls trawling EG for me

 

I also get told off by my better half for EduGeeking from home - this occurs most frequently when there's things like "Masterchef" on the telly. Unfortunately, my typing is loud enough that i'm easily rumbled

[ssiruuk2]

Next noob smoothwall question for you Tom, Youtube ..

 

Kids are blocked from youtube etc - that works great. I have got the staff group as "unfiltered" at the moment in the screen I could not see for looking.. - If a member of staff goes on YouTube and tries to run a clip the flash loading circle goes on spinning forever.

 

Any ideas?

 

I too get rumbled for doing things online, usually reading on here whilst the better half is watching some kind of TV show.

Edited September 16, 2008 by ssiruuk2
cant type or spell :(

[tom_newton]

Hmm, youtube should be fine. Take it there's nowt in the logs - shouldn't be as it is unfiltered.

 

Do you have AV on? Transparent or non-transparent filtering?

 

I'll play with it tomorrow in the office.

[ssiruuk2]

Hi Tom,

 

You were right again. I have the AV turned on using the built in ClamD scanner. (Does anyone else use this? It has caught a couple of viruses in the last few months) Turned it off and youtube worked fine for a test staff user.. turn it back on, tried to tell the smoothie not to scan flv or swf files but still no joy. Sometimes the loading circle would be there for a couple of minutes and then the clip would load but seemed to fail more than it would work.

 

In the end I added in youtube.com and googlevideo.com to the "dont scan files from these sites" section, it then started working fine.

 

Thanks again much appreciated. Can I keep adding in all my stupid questions onto this thread of should I start a new one

[tom_newton]

You're welcome to add questions here, there and everywhere - i'll usually find em - and they're *far* from the stupidest questions I have ever been asked. "Does MSN messenger need the internet" is a recent classic

 

ClamAV is pretty decent as a "belt & braces" technique alongside desktop AV. Ours nobbles 1 or 2 a month - when you are filtering it is less likely that folk get to the download site, and then there's the banned filetypes to overcome, so it is not so likely that you'll get anything to scan. Still, it's probably worthwhile in the long run.

[ssiruuk2]

Hi tom

 

I have now got all the staff going through the smoothwall so we can log whats being accessed, (before they went through an open isa server). One problem is a couple of staff users arent being identified properly by ntlm and get put in the unauthenticated ips group. Any idea how can you troubleshoot this as they are in the correct group in AD.

 

One other problem is staff are complaining that streaming radio no longer works or it is very patchy if it does. Staff are unfiltered so not sure why thats happening.

Thanks

Edited September 20, 2008 by ssiruuk2

[tom_newton]

Call me Monday - Rob's better at AD troubles than me I am sure he's seen that one but can't remember what the answer was off the top of my head!

[andyrite]

I'm having problems with the streaming radio too.

[tom_newton]

Streaming radio issues - gimme some sites and i will have a crack in t' morning patchiness is "unusual" tho we sometimes find apps "just stop working"... anyway, I'll have a sniff round!

[EduTech]

Think i will add these Q and A to the Wiki sometime today.. think it will be useful.

 

James.

[tom_newton]

OK... streaming radio on the BBC - flash version we can't make it fail. If you're having trouble with this one, do let me know the exact circumstances/symptoms.

 

Realplayer: may need firewall-openage https://support.smoothwall.net/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=221&nav=0,4

 

particularly irritating that I couldn't remember that as I wrote the damn KB article!

[ssiruuk2]

hi tom thanks for the call today. I spoke with a few members of staff and it seems that most will be using bbc streaming radio using the "listen live" link, launches the iplayer applet thing and it seems it will work for a while maybe five mins max and then just stops and not reconnect. Everyone in our school (1700 users) goes through the smoothwall now so it gets a proper hammering! maybe our server is not spec'd up for the job? Cpu useage etc seems ok though.

We are using a cheap hp proliant ml115 with 2 gb ram at the moment !

[tom_newton]

Thanks for getting back to me! Always useful to have diagnostic info - helps improve the software for everyone.

 

Would have thought your server is up to snuff - plenty of RAM, and if your load average is not high then CPU is fine too (which is what I would expect).

 

I have a sneaky feeling what it might be though... I reckon it is using the web proxy, but only authenticating once, and then their auth times out.

 

Either:

a) raise the auth timeout - this would make a good test. If the failure happens after 10 (i think thats default) mins almost exactly each time... you have your culprit. I don't think this is a long term solution though

b) mark those domains as "do not auth" (guardian/auth/settings)

c) fix the BBC's player

 

I will have a second look at this issue - I will admit we didn't exactly leave it playing for hours.

[ssiruuk2]

Any idea how to increase the Auth timeout? Can't see it for looking (again!)

 

We already have BBC - Homepage and Mobius Communications Company Providing High Speed And Dial-Up Internet Access To Western Nebraska listed in the do not auth list on the smoothwall.

 

Cheers