In a small school with limited connectivity could a proxy, running on Windows Server 2012, cache streaming videos such as Youtube? Or this is out of any proxy capability, due to architectural limits?
This could be useful for instance, if all students are required to view the same video at the same time from multiple PCs.
Of course the video could be downloaded in advance and run from the school's server.
Your thoughts?
Best Answer
This would be a bit tricky as youtube now serves all their content with HTTPS, you would have to add your own CA cert to all browsers within the network and then serve this content through this. I've setup a similar system in the past using pfsense with squid cache plugin, though you would probably have to keep in mind the SSL certificate to deliver content properly without errors. Also it's worth noting youtube is constantly changing their system and a specific proxy caching rule might be easily rendered obsolete the next day.
This links explains the technique for SSL serving through squid proxy: http://wiki.squid-cache.org/Features/SslPeekAndSplice
If the video is for planned content usage, the simple solution would be to download the youtube content and share it internally by other means (network share).