TwistedHelixis

@tom_newton Sorry for the delay, I started following a different post, thinking it was about Smoothwall Cloud, but it wasn't. Just wondering if Smoothwall are looking into Smoothwall Cloud working with GCPW windows devices? Is this something that might happen at some point? it was our local authority that contacted support on behalf of all the schools in our county, so I don't have this, sorry.

Just realized, these posts are not about the GCPW issues we are having with Smoothwall cloud, but about onsite Smoothwall. There was a forum about the cloud version issues at some point, hence my confusion when it popped up and I replied previously. Ill try to find the other one, as we have been waiting almost a year now for that to get looked at.

I seem to remember getting an error like that while setting up SSO. Did you ever start setting SSO up, but not complete all the steps?

worked out it doesn't make a difference if you include the full stop or not. The reason it wasn't working for my test, the server wasn't moving the email to the users Spam folder, which was the option selected. If I select reject as the option, it does reject the email and my test sending account then gets a rejected message delivered.

On that page I notice it says the following.. Note: Although you can enter unsupported custom file types, they're matched only by filename, for example, document.sac Does that mean that we can't block htm, .html, .mhtml .url attachments? Although on the Workspace settings page it says.... Custom file types – Match files based on file name extension and doesn't mention needing a file name. Ill send a pdf and see what happens.

This is odd.... I have just added .url to the block list. Then sent a test email with an attached website (.url) file and it doesn't get blocked with or without the full stop. I'll give your .pdf idea a test and see if that gets blocked or not.

Just going back over a few security settings and I noticed that under Workspace > Gmail > Compliance > Attachment compliance we block .htm, .html, .mhtml Now on the same page if you open Google list of built in file types you get this https://support.google.com/a/answer/2364580?hl=en-GB#file-types which does have the full stop But some of their help pages and also this https://jamcyber.com/blog/cyber-insights/blocking-htm-html-attachments-in-google-workspace/ plus other sites and also Gemini just have htm, html, mhtml without the full stop. Should I use a full stop or not?

Primary school are using Google Vids, which is powered by AI to create videos from their Google docs. Gemini is used by the staff, but all the main Ai systems including Gemini are blocked for the pupils. Didn't really like Copilot and ChatGPT is a no

I was going to ask about Hyper-V VMs. Would have been handy if MS had already supplied a way of doing this. It will be June before we know it.

Thanks @jthompson

Thanks @Olliedawg, that does make things less stressful

In September or October the old certs get removed from the MS servers, even they say devices might fail to boot after that.

The issue is not updating the BIOS, its a) what if a device doesn't have the BIOS update that can support the new certs, 2) how to manage this on hundreds of different devices across different sites and some at remote locations. Even starting with the servers, If I install the latest BIOS and that doesn't have the new certs, what do I do then?

Windows doesn't always boot after doing this 😞

Not sure which forum to post this in. Have others been pro actively making sure all their systems are ready for the new certificates? The main companies (Dell, HP) offer a few tools for managing this on client endpoints, but I have some schools that have purchased cheaper (Chinese laptops / desktops) that might not ever get a BIOS update. What are their options for installing the certs? We have Dell PowerEdge host servers, with a couple of VMs on each. How are you making sure that the servers are ready? Honestly, I am very confused over this issue.

Thanks 🙂

@dhicks We are using Smoothwall for our filtering. Not the cloud filter, which I really want, as that doesn't work, but the proxy based one. I have just setup a GCPW win11 VM, and even if I use 8.8.8.8 as the DNS server on the client in the school the filtering still works. If I don't have anything entered in the proxy, I get full pupil filtering and if I enter the staff proxy settings, I still get the staff filtering. Are you trying to do something different to me?

Small primary school Moved all clients off from the AD domain, so now I am thinking about DHCP and DNS. Printer is IP based, Door system is IP based. Just wondering, do I even really need DNS internally? Would be great to chat with someone that has already gone down this path.

I have a bunch of these at different schools, purchased at different times and only had one or two fail.

It must be possible, as a competitor got their filter working, apparently by adding something into Registry and then using that to call the name from.

Good luck. Keep us posted 🙂

This is so true. One of the primary schools I work for used to make life so bad for special ed pupils, they would end up leaving the school. They would normally go to another school I worked for, which was full of special ed kids, even though it wasnt a special ed school, but they wanted to take these kids in. I have seen both extremes of this issue.

When I went to school many many years ago, we were definitely treated like mini adults. At work now, can you imagine being sanctioned for turning round to look at the clock, or looking out the windows.

My son dropped a pen on the floor and scraped his chair trying to pick it up, the teacher said he had done it on purpose, which obviously rattled my son, so he answered back saying he hadn't (they were not allowed to answer back), but because he did answer back, the teacher told him to leave the class and go to detention after school, when he refused to go to detention, as he hadn't done anything wrong he was give a week in solitary lessons, basically a hut that you don't leave. My son refused to go back in to school after that. This was a couple of years ago now. I cant even imaging going to a secondary school like that, they had to walk in silence through the corridors etc. There was no middle ground or anyway for a pupil to put their side if they were told off. How to make your childhood memory's a nightmare experience.

There are some hidden button presses that fix some of these issues. Press and hold Esc + Refresh , then while holding those press the Power button for a few seconds. When the wipe screen opens just reboot or turn off the Chromebook using the power button. Hopefully that helps EDIT (Refresh = a round arrow icon along the top row of buttons)