FAQ: What is CROSH?

Oh no! Your students have been seen using CROSH and are hacking their way out of GoGuardian!

Not to worry. Here is all that you need to know about CROSH, what it is used for, and how to stop your students from using it.

Crosh is a Command Shell environment known as “Chrome Shell” that is provided with Chrome OS. It is very similar to Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal in macOS devices. Crosh allows users to run several commands directly from ChromeOS. The vast majority of Linux commands are locked down inside CROSH. In order to be able to execute the commands that could compromise the GoGuardian extensions, Developer Tools need to be enabled in the Google Admin Console.

How do I know if a student was using Crosh?

Here's what CROSH looks like from the different perspectives.

1. Student's Perspective

From the student's point of view, it will look like this on a Chromebook:

2. Admin's Perspective

When looking in GoGuardian Admin, the CROSH will show up as this URL: 

chrome-extension://nkoccljplnhpfnfiajclkommnmllphnl/html/crosh.html

3. Teacher's Perspective

In GoGuardian Teacher, since it is not a webpage but a chrome://settings page, the screen cannot be seen and will show as "waiting for activity".

If you are not sure if Developer Tools is disabled for your students, we recommend that you check out our Best Practices for Google Admin Console guide.

How do the students get on CROSH?

Crosh can be accessed by pressing CTRL+ALT+T on the keyboard. This will open a new tab with the CROSHterminal.

Can I block CROSH?

You sure can! With GoGuardian Admin, you can use the wildcarded term *crosh* to block the students from opening up the terminal. Adding *crosh* to the policy assigned your the students will block them from wasting time in the terminal.

What can I do with CROSH?

Here is a great article with all the base commands you can run with CROSH: https://krypted.com/commands/crosh-commands/ 
Remember, developer tools need to be enabled in order for some of these commands to be executable.