Local network problems that can affect Headsprout

Knowledge Base Article ID: 63 ( Try another search )

Some components and devices on your local network can interfere with, or adversely affect, your usage of Headsprout.

Firewalls
A firewall is a network device that implements policies that either allows or disallows traffic into and out of your network. If you have a firewall, all traffic in and out of your network must pass through it and problems can arise if a specific Internet site (such as Headsprout) has been denied access by the firewall. Please ask your network administrator if you have a firewall, and if so, it should allow traffic to and from the headsprout.com domain.

Proxies
A proxy is a network device that intercepts all requests to the real server (i.e. Headsprout) to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server. Proxy servers have two main purposes:

• Improve Performance - Proxy servers can dramatically improve performance for groups of users. This is because it saves (caches) the results of all requests for a certain amount of time.
• Filter Requests - Proxy servers can also be used to filter requests. For example, a company might use a proxy server to prevent its employees from accessing a specific set of Web sites.

Please contact your network administrator to see if you have a proxy server, and if so, it should allow traffic to and from the headsprout.com domain and it should not cache any files from the headsprout.com domain.

Saturated bandwidth
If the demand for bandwidth exceeds your available supply, many Internet based services (including Headsprout) could be affected. Please see KB article ID 45.

Hubs
If your school LAN utilizes hubs on an already congested network, then network latency will occur. If possible the hubs should be replaced with switches. The advantage of using switches is that a switch will forward packets only to the correct computer, whereas a hub will send packets to ALL computers attached to it, regardless of the intended destination. The result is excessive and unnecessary traffic.

Antivirus software
If any antivirus software is used, please configure it such that it does not scan any Macromedia Flash files (.swf extension) for viruses. Headsprout uses Macromedia Flash to deliver its engaging, interactive episodes and if any of these files are blocked, the program will not operate correctly. Please note that viruses are not contained in, nor spread by Macromedia Flash files.

Group management software
If your school utilizes group management software, such as Macintosh Manager, please ensure that it is configured to allow each user to store and retain their own cookies. Headsprout uses cookies to provide session management and account verification when the program is being used. If cookies are blocked or not allowed to be saved to the local computer’s hard drive, then the Headsprout program will not operate correctly.

Download accelerator software
Most download accelerator software does not work at all and is normally a vehicle for spyware/malware. The download accelerator software that does work achieves results by compression, caching, and tweaking the clients TCP/IP settings. Many download accelerators do not handle Macromedia Flash content very well and we suggest that you disable this software when using Headsprout.

Desktop security software
If any desktop security software such as fortress, foolproof or Macintosh manager is installed on computers that will be running Headsprout, we suggest that they are configured to allow communication to the headsprout.com domain.

Intrusion Detection Systems
The intent of a Network Intrusion Detection system is to detect network misuse by internal users or attacks on the network from the outside. Pattern-matching solutions are primarily used to implement these systems and they usually employ a library of signatures of misuse or attack, which are used to match against network traffic. The weaknesses of these systems are many: variants, false positives, false negatives, and data overload. If your school uses any Network Intrusion Detection software, please configure it to ignore traffic to and from the headsprout.com domain.

Please contact your network administrator to see how your local network (LAN) is configured. Does it use hubs or switches? If it uses hubs, are there so many users on the network that all the LAN bandwidth is being used up and resulting in packet collisions?

DNS
DNS is short for Domain Name System (or Service or Server), an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The Internet however, is really based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.headsprout.com might translate to 207.195.230.5.

If your DNS service is configured incorrectly, or it is having intermittent problems, then you will not be able to connect to Headsprout. Please contact your network administrator to ensure that all of your computers can connect to www.headsprout.com

Keywords: LAN network bandwidth proxy proxies firewalls hubs routers switches DNS Intrusion Detection security antivirus accelerator

Date last modified: 07/07/2008