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Workspaces now default to blocking internet access

Posted on 2024-07-23 by Matt West

PrairieLearn workspaces now default to blocking internet access from inside the workspace. This allows workspaces to be used inside the Computer-Based Testing Facility (CBTF) for secure access to Python notebooks, VS Code with compilers, and other programming environments.

We strongly recommend leaving the default in place for exam questions to avoid students using network access for cheating. However, you might want to allow students to access the internet from within a workspace on homework questions. To allow this, you can add the enableNetworking option to the question's info.json file, like this:

{
    "uuid": "...",
    "title": "...",
    "workspaceOptions": {
        "image": "...",
        "enableNetworking": true
    }
}

See the documentation for more information.