How to apply web content filtering for all VMs in Azure Labs?

Question

For safeguarding students.

Any suggestions would be helpful

thanks

Answer 1

Hi @Andy Yu Unfortunately, Azure Lab Services doesn't offer built-in support for content filtering, and doesn't support network-level filtering.

If your school needs to perform content filtering, such as for compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), you will need to use 3rd party software.

Schools typically approach content filtering by installing third-party software that performs content filtering on each computer. To install third-party content filtering software on each computer, you should install the software on each lab's template VM.

There are a few key points to highlight as part of this solution:

• If you plan to use the auto-shutdown settings, you'll need to unblock several Azure host names with the 3rd party software. The auto-shutdown settings use a diagnostic extension that must be able to communicate back to Lab Services. Otherwise, the auto-shutdown settings will fail to enable for the lab.
• You may also want to have each student use a non-admin account on their VM so that they can't uninstall the content filtering software. Adding a non-admin account must be done when creating the lab.

In addition to that, you can also leverage Teams to help create and manage labs.
As an educator, you can access student VMs directly from the Virtual machine pool tab. You can start, stop, reset, or connect to a student VM. Educators can also access VMs assigned to themselves either from the Virtual machine pool tab, or by selecting My Virtual Machines in the top-right corner.
Reference documentation : Create and manage Azure Lab Services labs in Microsoft Teams

Other resources that might help :

• Content Moderator which provides automated image, text and video moderation.

I would also recommend looking for 3rd party web content filtering software on the web search and select one based on the reviews as well as your needs.

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