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    Safe Exam Browser
    • 10 Nov 2023
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Safe Exam Browser

    • Updated on 10 Nov 2023
    • 4 Minutes to read
    • Contributors
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    Article summary

    Safe Exam Browser (SEB)

    Cirrus has built-in support for the open-source lockdown browser Safe Exam Browser⧉ aka SEB, downloadable from https://safeexambrowser.org/⧉.

    Quick Overview

    Incorrect use completely breaks Cirrus!

    To serve its purpose the Cirrus-Safe Exam Browser solution should stop non-compliant users from accessing their exam.
    As this means some unsupported use will completedly break Cirrus, Please heed our warnings.

    • With Safe Exam Browser the Administrator has to do some configuration both in Cirrus and the Safe Exam Browser configuration tool producing a so-called .seb file.
    • For any assessment with Safe Exam Browser the "Safe Exam Browser" option needs to be enabled.
    • On the computer used by the candidate the correct version of Safe Exam Browser has to be downloaded and installed.
    • and the .seb file opened.
    For test centres only or provide detailed guidance

    For candidates installing the right version of Safe Exam Browser and setting it up, is not as self-explanatory as the smooth onboarding experience of dedicated proctoring solutions, like Proctorio and ProctorU.

    We strongly advice dedicated proctoring solutions for off-site candidates. If you do decide to use SEB then to ensure to give clear detailed step-by-step guidance to your candidates to prevent them from facing issues entering their exams.

    Safe Exam Browser Support Policy

    As per our System Requirements Cirrus supports only the latest version of Safe Exam Browser for Windows.
    To enable customers to roll out a new version to their test centres Cirrus offers 60 day grace period. This grace period starts after Cirrus releases a new SEB version for use with Cirrus through the Release Notes. This will be done shortly after a SEB release after Cirrus has completed its Quality Assurance.

    NOTE: SEB for Windows Legacy not supported!

    We still sometimes receive issues from customers and users running non-supported versions of SEB for Windows.
    NOTE: Cirrus will completely break!

    Safe Exam Browser for Mac

    Safe Exam Browser for Mac is not covered by our System Requirements and therefore not officially supported. Nor is Cirrus tested in these alternative solutions by Cirrus' Quality Assurance.
    However technically, as long as the latest Safe Exam Browser for Mac is used, there is no reason it should not work with Cirrus.

    NOTE: SEB for Mac 3.2+ and Modern Webview required!

    As we do not support SEB for Mac, for more details we kindly refer to the SEB website.

    Safe Exam Browser for iOS

    Safe Exam Browser for iOS is not covered by our System Requirements and Cirrus will probably not work correctly, a.o. due to the limited screen size.

    Kiosk Apps

    Some software companies provide a Kiosk App or Lockdown Browser with their own technology yet adhering to the Safe Exam Browser's Config Key check.
    These alternative solutions are not covered by our System Requirements and therefore not officially supported. Nor is Cirrus tested in these alternative solutions by Cirrus' Quality Assurance.
    However technically, as long as the Kiosk app contains a recent browser engine and kept up-to-date, and the SEB key check is properly implemented, there is no reason they should not work with Cirrus.
    As Kiosk apps have many options to restrict the browser beyond what is needed for Cirrus, contact your Kiosk app vendor for support in case you run into issues.

    Integrity validation aka "Key check"

    After Chrome had tightened their CORS security, and SEB released SEB with this Chrome version the HTTP Header check became obsolete at the end of 2020. On behalf of its SEB customers Cirrus had worked hard in close collaboration with the SEB team (#84) to provide on a future proof alternative; the SEB JavaScript API described below.

    Thanks to work by the SEB team that was pushed and helped by Cirrus, a.o. through testing, (see #84) this new SEB JavaScript API became available already with 3.3.2 in Q1 2022 (originally planned for 2023+).

    SEB JavaScript API

    To ensure maximum integrity the Safe Exam Browser Javascript API is only used by Cirrus to feed its server-side key check, see HTTP Header check. Any request not passing this check will be blocked and the user informed.

    If the Safe Exam Browser Javascript API is detected by Cirrus it will be used to extract the hashed "Browser Exam Key" and add it as a X-SafeExamBrowser-RequestHash HTTP Header to the requests send to Cirrus.

    HTTP Header check

    If the key check is enabled Cirrus will perform a server-side key check. Any request not passing this check will be blocked and the user informed.
    This by checking each request to its API for the X-SafeExamBrowser-RequestHash HTTP Header against the (Browser Exam Key) keys configured in Cirrus by the administrator.

    Browser Exam Key

    See the developer information on the Safe Exam Browser website for more details: https://safeexambrowser.org/developer/seb-integration.html

    Any Config Keys are currently not being used or checked

    TROUBLESHOOTING

    Checklist

    Before reporting issues please:

    Logging

    • Review the Safe Exam Browser logs stored in %LocalAppData%\SafeExamBrowser\Logs\, usually:
      C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SafeExamBrowser\Logs\ for apparent errors. See also Safe Exam Browser's Allow access to application log (Win) info under Settings in the Security Pane.
    • Upload the <timestamp>_Client.log, <timestamp>_Runtime.log, and <timestamp>_Browser.log with for timestamp <timestamp> the time of your issue when requesting support.
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