[Ldsoss] Internet Filter

[Jay Askren]

Yes, I meant to say proxy server.  Either way, the filtering happens on the
server(a computer other than the client) side, and not the client side.
I've set it up before as well.  It seems to me though that Dan's Guardian
isn't very useful if it's on the computer to be filtered.  To use the proxy
server one needs to go into the internet options in Firefox and set up the
proxy server.  To turn off the filtering, it's as easy as telling firefox to
no longer use the proxy server.  At least if Dan's Guardian is on a separate
computer, internet traffic can be blocked at the router level from the
client computer and while traffic still goes to the server computer.  I'd
rather not have to run a separate computer all of the time just to filter
internet access.  If there is a way to use Dan's Guardian to filter the
computer it's on so it's not easy to get around the filter, I'd be
interested in hearing how to do that.

Thanks for the other suggestions.  I'm going to look into those.

Jay




On 1/2/07, Shawn Willden <shawn-ldsoss at willden.org> wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 02 January 2007 14:26, Jay Askren wrote:
> > Does anyone know of a good internet filter for linux?  I do know about
> > Dan's Guardian(http://dansguardian.org/) which is a good server filter,
> but
> > I'm looking for a client side filter.
>
> Dan's Guardian isn't a server filter.  It is a proxy server, but there's
> nothing preventing you from running it on a "client" machine.  I
> experimented
> with it a while ago, and it seems pretty good, and not difficult to set
> up.
> I can help if you need it.
>
> In practice, we put the kids' computers in the kitchen, where everyone can
> see
> their screens, and just to double check, I occasionally glance through the
> browser history.  Since they don't (yet) realized they can clear the
> history,
> that works just fine.  We've decided to monitor, rather than filter, and
> made
> that clear to our kids.  Filtering does have its attractions, though.
>
> Our bigger computer-related problems have actually been fights over who
> got
> enough computer time, too *much* time on the computer and too much
> printing.
>
> For anyone who's interested, Linux has provided some nice solutions to
> those
> problems as well.
>
> For the first two, 'timeoutd' has been great.  It's a little daemon that
> monitors the time users spend logged in, and enforces usage policies.
>
> My configuration gives each of the kids one hour per day of computer time.
> There's no more fighting about who's been hogging the computers (there are
> two), because timeoutd enforces a fair allocation.  Also, it imposes a
> hard
> limit on the amount of computer play time.
>
> If they want to use the computer for educational purposes, they can always
> ask
> for a little more time, and I can give it to them.
>
> I used quotas to deal with excessive printing for a while, but we've
> eventually convinced the kids to ask permission when they print more than
> a
> page or two, so I've removed the quotas.
>
>        Shawn.
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