Network and Browser Requirements
The program is designed to work on any modern browser and should have no trouble running. Occasionally there are issues, and there are a few things you can do to ensure you won’t run into any problems.
Browser Requirements
We recommend any browser except Internet Explorer. We test regularly on the latest versions of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and will not release any features until it is working on those two browsers. We will resolve any reported issues with Microsoft Edge and Safari. Outside of these 4 browsers, we indicate that the program should work, but there may be hiccups or features that do not work appropriately.
We do recommend always upgrading to the latest stable versions of the browsers to ensure software features are supported. We have run into issues where a school provides a 2 year old Mozilla Firefox build that doesn’t have all the necessary features and the program doesn’t work properly.
Network Requirements
Most home networks will have no problems with the program. Many schools will have firewalls in place that may block certain features of the program from running. For schools behind a firewall, we recommend whitelisting our domain and all subdomains: “*.keyboardingonline.com“. Ports 80 and 443 (HTTP and HTTPS) are the only ports the students will utilize with our program. This will ensure the program runs properly without any issues.
You can use IP address whitelisting if desired, but are continually updating our software and adding features. We do not anticipate moving our service to another provider, but such a move could result in new IP addresses being assigned. If you choose to whitelist IP addresses, the following IPs should be added to the network firewall (again, we do recommend highly recommend domain whitelisting):
- 74.221.218.132
- 74.221.218.145
- 74.221.218.143
- 74.221.218.144
- 74.221.218.146
Live Student Monitor
This past year we created a live monitor that utilizes WebSockets to provide access to a real-time database that allows teachers to see exactly what a student is doing inside the program. The school firewall should allow WebSocket traffic to *.firebase.com and *.firebaseio.com on ports 80 and 443. Firebase is a product that is managed and run by Google that provides real-time databases, which is what we are using to allow student monitoring. It is a scalable cloud platform, meaning IP’s are added and removed routinely, and end users will connect to the fastest server available. IP addresses should not be whitelisted for this service, just the domain and subdomains.
Google Sign In
As we continue to integrate with 3rd party services, additional firewall rules may need to be added. Since students can link their accounts with their Google account, *.google.com on ports 80 and 443 should be whitelisted. Since Google is typically whitelisted on school networks, there shouldn’t be many issues.