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inexpensive internet monitoring for school

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  • 26-01-2005 1:50am
    #1
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭


    just wondering if anyone can reccomend a solution to this....

    a primary school im working on has about 20 PC's running from a proxy server (analogix proxyi) all is well, but they need a way of monitoring and "nannying" the student usage.

    Netnanny on each PC was one suggestion, but I am doubtfull about its effectiveness and getting 20 licences could be a tad expensive.

    can anyone reccomend a solution, windows or linux that can act as a proxy server and monitor traffic to this degee and block possible "nasties" while recording to a log?

    TIA


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    #2
    Static M.e.
    Registered Users Posts: 3,088 ✭✭✭Static M.e.


    This could be what you are looking for

    DansGuardian is an award winning Open Source web content filter which currently runs on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, and Solaris. It filters the actual content of pages based on many methods including phrase matching, PICS filtering and URL filtering. It does not purely filter based on a banned list of sites like lesser totally commercial filters.
    DansGuardian is designed to be completely flexible and allows you to tailor the filtering to your exact needs. It can be as draconian or as unobstructive as you want. The default settings are geared towards what a primay school might want but DansGuardian puts you in control of what you want to block.

    DansGuardian is a true web content filter.
    http://dansguardian.org/


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    #3
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,807 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Seconded: DG is the dog's. It works in conjunction with a squid cacheing proxy, which has the added benefit of hugely increasing the performance of your Internet connection.

    ClarkConnect is a Linux distro that is set up to act as a general-purpose gateway/firewall, and it includes squid and DansGuardian


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    #4
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    thanks for that, didnt turn up on sourceforge when I searched earlier.

    Anyway, all I have to do now is convince the school to drop their unlicecend and uneeded windows 2000 server OS and pop on clarkconnect, which looks like the absolute dogs danglies!

    cheers. you've made my day a whole lot better, gotta love open source.


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    #5
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,880 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    If you have to keep the windows box stick SquidNT on it, more logs than a picnic table.

    can't remember the setting buy you can change the port from 3128 to 6588 fairly easily - so nothing to do at the client end - and unlike analogx, squid caches

    http://www.serassio.it/SquidNT.htm

    http://adzapper.sourceforge.net/ - ad zapping with squid (needs pearl)


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    #6
    Random
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,080 ✭✭✭✭Random


    Webfiltering software is never really much use in my opinion, what you need is a little quidance and some physical supervision...


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    #7
    tomk
    Registered Users Posts: 1,067 ✭✭✭tomk


    ciaranfo wrote:
    Webfiltering software is never really much use in my opinion

    To satisfy my curiosity, ciaranfo, what experience is your opinion based on? There are a lot of satisfied DG users out there.......


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    #8
    Random
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,080 ✭✭✭✭Random


    We had it in our school and we always found a way around it :)

    I don't have a lot of experience from your side, simply from the other point of view.

    You say it's for a primary school, surely their PC usage is going to be monitored anyway? I thought Primary School students were always monitored, break times, time off, etc etc..


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    #9
    Zenith74
    Registered Users Posts: 755 ✭✭✭Zenith74


    As far as I know Eircom are about to go through the process of replacing the broadband they put into a lot of primary schools a few months back with a new system with a central firewall and filtering? Might want to find out if this is going ahead before you make any decisions, could save you some hassle...


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