How to identify Blue Coat categories for YouTube in the access log

Products

• ProxySG Software - SGOS

Issue/Introduction

Is there a way for identifying Blue Coat categories for YouTube in the access log?

Resolution

You can access log Blue Coat categories for YouTube if you have enabled the feature (Configuration > Content Filtering) and selected categories for use in policy.

If you use an extended log file format (ELFF) for access logs, you can use the existing category access-log field to report on specified categories; however, the categories will be logged without the provider name. For example, a category will be logged as Entertainment. To distinguish between Blue Coat-defined categories and Blue Coat categories for YouTube in the access log, specify the ELFF field cs-categories-qualified. This field provides a list of all content categories of the request URL, qualified by the provider. For example, traffic matching YouTube’s Entertainment category would be logged as Entertainment@YouTube.

The YouTube API v3.0 enforces an unspecified limit to protect against excessive traffic. In the event that YouTube traffic through the ProxySG appliance reaches this limit, traffic categories will be unavailable to the appliance and policy controlling specific categories will not take effect. To determine if the appliance has reached the limit, you can look for "unavailable" categories or "too_many_recent_calls" lines in the access log. You can also track your quota usage in the Google Developers Console. For more information, refer to https://developers.google.com/youtube/registering_an_application.

Note: In April 2015, Google deprecated YouTube Data API v2.0. As a result, Blue Coat categories for YouTube are no longer supported in SGOS versions prior to 6.5.7.6.

Note: This feature is provided on an "as-is" basis. Blue Coat has no control of, and is not responsible for, information and content provided (or not) by YouTube.  Customer is required to apply and use its own API key in order to activate this feature, and therefore obligated to comply with all terms of use regarding the foregoing (for example, see https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms), including quotas, restrictions and limits on use that may be imposed by YouTube. Blue Coat shall not be liable for any change, discontinuance, availability or functionality of the features described herein.