Configuring the Smoothwall Filter to Allow Access to Specific YouTube videos or playlists

This article describes how to allow access to specific YouTube videos and/or playlists, while YouTube in general remains blocked. Allowing individual videos for YouTube can be time-consuming and tedious finding, then listing each video's URL in a category.

  • This will not work if the content modification 'Youtube restricted mode' is enabled.
  • This is most appropriate for customers who do not use GSuite for education.

Procedure

  1. Create a new Decrypt and Inspect HTTPS inspection policy with the YouTube category and these settings, see our help topic, Creating HTTPS inspection policies:
    • Who: "Everyone, or the relevant user or groups to apply this policy to."
    • What: "YouTube"
    • Where: "Everywhere, or the relevant location to apply this policy to."
    • When: "Always, or the relevant time slot to apply this policy to."
    • Action: "Decrypt and Inspect"

  2. For each YouTube video that you want to allow access to, retrieve the video ID. The video ID is the last 11 characters of the URL.
    For example, for the following URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPI0bCXiF3U, the video ID would be "mPI0bCXiF3U".

  3. For each YouTube playlist that you want to allow access to, retrieve the playlist ID. 
    For example, for the following URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPI0bCXiF3U&list=PL9t6_hQVM327fI9eGgcMDIuiPJUkGyFBh, the playlist ID would be "PL9t6_hQVM327fI9eGgcMDIuiPJUkGyFBh"

  4. Navigate to 'Guardian > Policy objects > Categories', then scroll down the list of existing categories and expand the 'Standard categories' section. Scroll down until you find the 'YouTube Allowed videos and playlists' category and select the edit button on the right hand side of the page.

  5. Once the page reloads, select the 'Advanced' button and scroll down to the section labelled 'Video ID filtering'. Into this section paste the video IDs you identified from step 2 and/or the playlist ID from step 3.

  6. Finally, create an allow web filtering policy with the following settings for the group required, and ensure it is placed above your block policy for YouTube. For more information see our help topic, Creating web filter policies:
    • Who: "Everyone, or the relevant user or groups to apply this policy to."
    • What: "YouTube Allowed videos and playlists"
    • Where: "Everywhere, or the relevant location to apply this policy to."
    • When: "Always, or the relevant time slot to apply this policy to."
    • Action: "Allow"