Url filtering

[timinator]

hi, is there a way to block certain web sites from being accessed by users on our lan.

Fedora Core 5

Thanks
Tim

[William Haller]

You can filter the traffic to particular IP addresses via iptables, or you can install software like Squid and Dansguardian to aid in filtering based on content analysis and URLs, or you could decide if the people were worth having around in spite of the URLs they visit and not worry about it. It's very hard to keep ahead of the curve in blocking sites, and it takes a lot of resources to do filtering to monitor traffic if you have a significant LAN. Make sure your system has some oompf behind it if you use a content based rather than IP based approach.

[timinator]

Thanks for the info

[larryt]

Hi Terminator,

Look at your router and see if it can do this. It would be a lot better to block at a centralized router for all the machines being fed under it, then to have to try to maintain a block list at each machine. Routers are inexpensive enough that if your current router does not do this, that you might want to replace it with a router that does.

Don't forget to block not only the hostname, but the ip address and ipaddress range that it represents.

Hope that helps,

LarryT