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Thread: Internet Management

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    Internet Management

    Hey Guys,

    Does anyone know any software or application that can be loaded onto a machine to manage what sites users can and cannot view and also track what sites have been visited.

    This is for a MAC network not a windows just so that you guys know.

    Many Thanks
    Drobbins

  2. #2
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
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    so good you asked it twice

    The good news it that the client PCS are independant as long as they can use a proxy.

    how many machines do you want to track ?

    what sort of budget do you have ( there are solutions ranging from £0 to £lots )
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Moby-Dick
    so good you asked it twice
    That was an accident i was trying to look for a moderator of this forum but couldnt find one.
    Sorry about that.

    how many machines do you want to track ?
    I want to track ruffley 10 machines.

    what sort of budget do you have ( there are solutions ranging from £0 to £lots )
    We have about £600 for this...

    Many Thanks
    Richard

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    Treasure Hunter extraordinaire herulach's Avatar
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    Is it specific sites you want to blacklist? Or do you want to whitelist thigns or what?

    Some suggestions, in ascending order of price:
    Squid running in transparent mode on a spare machince, full access controls + proxy, but youd need a working linux install and its another box to maintain

    wrt54G(s) with DD-WRT installed, you can then filter by url or keyword, cost about 50 quid plus time setting up.

    Youd be looking at around 400 or so for something a bit more hardcore like smoothwall (plus hardware, but if you already have a firewall machine in place it could replace the os on that)

  5. #5
    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
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    theres a coupel of options at that kind of price range.

    There are quite a few smallbusiness type firewalls that have some built in Content Filtering.
    They will rely on an external database of sites that catagorises them appropriatly. You can then allow or deny access based on those catagories. I'm not sure what the reporting is like on those.

    plan b would be to go open source.

    You could use something like Clarkconnect to create a gateway machine to act as a proxy server for your network.

    Once your web access is running via the proxy server , there is a content filtering module for clark connect - this is called Dansguardian. You might have to spend some of your budget ( that you havn't spent on hardware - you wont spend much , its not expensive ) to getting hold of a database for site catagorisation.

    What I dont know is what you want to do with sites that are not catagorised ( ie you you want to block specific sites , or be able to have complete control of where users go )
    the latter will make life a bit trickier as you have to find a way of quickly adding sites to a catagory.

    As far as reporting goes , the proxy server takes quite detailed logs - these can be used to generate reports on where people browse.

    I hope that gives you some food for thought - Googling any of the terms in bold should give you some pointers.
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

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    Administrator Moby-Dick's Avatar
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    ah you beat me to it herulach

    I'd forgotten about smoothwall - the corporate version is pretty smart if memory serves me !

    those open source firmwares for the linksys kit seem to get better every time I look at them !
    my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net

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