Youtube Edu

[jott]

We want to allow youtube edu videos for everyone on our network, but still block youtube for students.  Youtube has a set up walkthrough that helps, but I need some assistance thinking this through.  So any assistance would be helpful.  I have posted the directions below...

Prerequisites

In order to access YouTube for Schools you will likely need help from your school's network administrator so please share this information with him or her. This sign up process should only take minutes! Before you begin, make sure your school meets the following requirements:

Instructions

1. Make sure YouTube is actually inaccessible from your school. If students can visit YouTube.com, you can access the educational content simply by visiting YouTube.com/education and there is no need to sign up for YouTube for Schools.
2. If YouTube is blocked at your school, it must be blocked at the domain level for YouTube for Schools to work. YouTube for Schools will not work if YouTube is blocked at the IP level.
3. Your hardware filter or proxy server must support either HTTP header modification or URL parameter modification.

Follow the three steps below and your school will have access to thousands of free educational videos in minutes. Once you are finished with the set-up be sure to read our our additional resources listed at the end of this page.

Step 1

Choose one of the following two options, depending on which works for your school's network:

Option A: Add new HTTP header rule

Please modify your hardware filter or proxy server settings so that all outgoing traffic to youtube.com contains the following custom HTTP header. The ID to use in the HTTP header configuration, written below, is unique to your school's network only. If your school is blocked at the district level, this HTTP header is then unique to the district network.X-YouTube-Edu-Filter:4gvIYKewE7DDa88P7XzQTw

Option B: Create URL parameter rewrite rule

If your firewall or filter does not support HTTP header modification, please rewrite all outgoing URLs to youtube.com by appending the parameter “edufilter” at the end.Example:

• http://youtube.com/?edufilter=4gvIYKewE7DDa88P7XzQTw
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk&edufilter=4gvIYKewE7DDa88P7XzQTw

Exclude the &edufilter parameter from these file types: .css, .gif, .png, .js, .xml

Step 2

Remove YouTube domain blocks

Ensure the following top-level domains are not blocked:

• youtube.com
• ytimg.com

Step 3

Adjust Settings and See Additional Resources

Your network should now be able to access the YouTube for Schools version of YouTube.com. You can grant unrestricted access to additional YouTube accounts (such as teachers) and approve additional videos for viewing in your school.

To Add More Videos for Viewing Within your School

Simply add each video you want to make accessible from within your school to a playlist on the administrator account. You can create as many playlists as you need and all playlists created on the school administrator account will be accessible for viewing within the school network. To learn more about playlists, including how to create them, visit this page.

To Propose Additional Channels to Add to YouTube EDU

We'd love to hear from you if you find a great educational channel you think schools around the world should be able to access as part of YouTube for Schools. Please first check YouTube EDU to confirm that the channel is not currently included in our corpus of educational. If it's not, please let us know more about the channel by filling in this form.

To Access Additional Information on YouTube for Schools

Please visit our FAQ, which we update regularly. If you're interested in connecting with other schools that are part of YouTube for Schools, please join the Google Group. If you have any questions or problems, please see our help forum.

[dyang]

Hi everyone,

Just an FYI that PAN-OS 6.0, which was released last week, contains some functionality to accommodate Google SafeSearch.  When the URL filtering profile setting "Enforce SafeSearch" is enabled, PAN-OS will look at all search queries for supported search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing, for now) and check that they are at the strictest setting.  If it is not, then a block page is displayed along with a link to the appropriate search engine's settings so that end-users can adjust their settings accordingly.  This will ensure that only searches at the proper setting will go through, and will also educate end-users on what they need to do to remedy the situation. 

As always, for those of you seeking an alternate solution or support for an alternate feature, please contact your SE so that your feedback is properly noted.

Thanks,

Doris

[MemphisBrothers]

I have discussed this at length with mu account rep and both SE.  Since there is not a resolution in place with PA they recommend posting on the groups.  Whodathunk it?

So after 2 months, a few updates, and a version update, are we any closer to getting some help in the educational environment that other firewalls offer on this particular issue?

[leahy268]

We are also another school who would love this feature.

Issue was discovered in version 4.  Now we are onto version 6. with no end in site.

It would be nice to have an account rep or se to talk to but the company that sold us the product is no longer anything to do with PA.

Maybe one day we will all have a solution.

[wgzip22]

We just purchased a PA3050 to replace our Cisco ASA's and a BlueCoat Proxy. We have been doing a header rewrite for youtube for schools with the Bluecoat for over a year now and our staff and students will expect this functionality to continue. This is definitely going to cause some major issues for us if we are no longer able to achieve this with the PA firewall. I'm hoping we didn't make a bad choice going with PA but it's to late for us to turn back now. This was pretty much a standard feature in most of the firewalls we evaluated. I find it hard to believe that PA can't even do a simple url redirect. Hopefully PA addresses this oversight soon if they want to continue expanding sales into Education.

[robertsa]

Another school here, disappointed that this feature isn't available and urging PA to address this as soon as possible.

[Strachf]

Another here. Would love to have this feature now please.

[RCarbon]

Hooked up with a SE from PA during ignite this year. His suggestion was to direct traffic for youtube to our local load balancer and have the load balancer do the rewrite. In the process of testing this. I'll post an update if it works.

[robertsa]

A proxy to change the header's seems like such a large resource demand for a simple request. There really should be an easier way to allow this feature on box.