[NTLUG:Discuss] Parental advice?

[Preston Hagar]

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Dennis Daupert <ddaupert at sbcglobal.net>wrote:

> Hello list,
>
>
> My brother asked me for advice for an area that, frankly, I haven't done
> much work in. (He's not terribly linux literate, but definitely not afraid
> of getting his hands dirty. I've used various linux distros on all my
> machines for several years, so I could help him set things up, if need be.)
> So I thought I'd bug this group for recommendations/advice, if that's OK. I
> moved out of Fort Worth a few years back, but have lurked ntlug ever since.
> Anyways, let me paste my brother's question here. Any thoughts are
> appreciated.
>
> ----
>
>
> Here's the situation: We found our daughter using her iPod after bedtime,
> watching YouTube videos. We need to control that. My router has parental
> controls, however it is pretty limited and difficult to use eg. every
> device in the pop up list says simply: "Network Device"...oh yeah, there
> are 18 devices in the list called "Network Device".
>
> I want
> something that I can MAC filter depending on the time of day, and
> possibly by website (white/black list?). I shopped new routers, and the
> one I think I might want (that has Gigabit, etc.) is $90. I have a
> couple of computers laying around that I could repurpose as a
> router/dhcp/domain controller/etc.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> ----
>
> dennis
>


Although it isn't specifically Linux,  I would look into one of two things:

First, I would see if his current router supports one of the open-source
firmwares.  I prefer Tomato USB [1], but it has a limited number of devices
it supports.  You can also check dd-wrt or some of the other similar ones.
 You may be able to just flash the firmware on the current router, and get
all the features you want with easy setup.

If a new firmware isn't an option, I would look into pfSense [2] with
SquidGuard [3].  It pretty much will do exactly what you want, and has a
decent web based configuration interface so you don't have to learn a
million iptables or pf rules.  If you already have a spare machine that you
can put two network cards in and dedicate to the task, this may be the way
to go.


Keep in mind with an "old machine", over time, you might spend more with
electricity costs and issues with outages (due to fans dying, things over
heating, hard drives dying, etc.) than just getting a new router (I like
the Asus rt-n16 with TomatoUSB), but it is up to you.

[1] http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

[2] http://www.pfsense.org/

[3]
http://hubpages.com/hub/URL-Filtering-How-To-Configure-SquidGuard-in-pfSense


Hope this helps,

Preston