Very Computer

hello and thanks,
i am a 25+yr m$ guy.
i work for a company installing network servers into schools so the kids can
cruise the internet.
we have been using w2k. after using linux a bit, i am clear i could use it
instead.
the problem is finding all the software i need.
i need some kind of server based content filtering.
not ip packfiltering as done in a firewall but some filter or proxy that
could check for certain bad words and phrases in the web pages and that do
something. also to filter email messages as well.
i tried freshmeat and linux.org but i cannot find any.

thanks so much,
dave

You are wasting your time attempting to filter content.  NONE of the
nanny filters are worth a damn, whether they run on Linux or Microsoft
products.

Active * instruction, participation and oversight is a workable
solution to your problem.

Unfortunally that's true, but some filters work for like x%. In this
case (school PC's) I believe every percent blocking content is worth
it.

And no, I don't know of any of such filters for Linux :-(

--
Menno

Hi!,

Quote:> i am a 25+yr m$ guy.
> i work for a company installing network servers into schools so the kids
> can cruise the internet. we have been using w2k. after using linux a bit, i
> am clear i could use it instead. the problem is finding all the software i
> need. i need some kind of server based content filtering. not ip
> packfiltering as done in a firewall but some filter or proxy that could
> check for certain bad words and phrases in the web pages and that do
> something. also to filter email messages as well. i tried freshmeat and
> linux.org but i cannot find any.

You might like to use a SQUID proxy server (http://www.squid-cache.org) and
the filtering program: "Squid-Guard" which is used in a number of environments
where the web material has to be filtered for young eyes.  These two programs
should help you out.

See ya

Dean Thompson

--
+____________________________+____________________________________________+

| Bach. Computing (Hons)     | ICQ     - 45191180                         |
| PhD Student                | Office  - <Off-Campus>                     |
| School Comp.Sci & Soft.Eng | Phone   - +61 3 9903 2787 (Gen. Office)    |
| MONASH (Caulfield Campus)  | Fax     - +61 3 9903 1077                  |
| Melbourne, Australia       |                                            |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

Although it isn't specifically designed for that type of content
filtering, Internet Junkbuster (http://www.junkbuster.com) can
filter out specific sites. The filering is done by IP address or
name, not content, however.

--

Quote:

> Hi!,

> > i am a 25+yr m$ guy.
> > i work for a company installing network servers into schools so the kids
> > can cruise the internet. we have been using w2k. after using linux a
bit, i
> > am clear i could use it instead. the problem is finding all the software
i
> > need. i need some kind of server based content filtering. not ip
> > packfiltering as done in a firewall but some filter or proxy that could
> > check for certain bad words and phrases in the web pages and that do
> > something. also to filter email messages as well. i tried freshmeat and
> > linux.org but i cannot find any.

> You might like to use a SQUID proxy server (http://www.squid-cache.org)
and
> the filtering program: "Squid-Guard" which is used in a number of
environments
> where the web material has to be filtered for young eyes.  These two
programs
> should help you out.

> See ya

> Dean Thompson

Sounds like something similar to what I'm trying to do as well.  I've been
able to do some very rudimentary blocking with Squid itself, although, from
the previous post, it sounds like SquidGuard will make the job easier and
faster (BTW--thanks for this--I'm going to look into SquidGuard myself).
I've got another problem though, that I was hoping the group might be able
to help with--transparent ftp proxying with URL/content filtering.  Looks
like squid will do this as well, but not transparently.  I've found a
program called "frox" (v0.6.5) that will do it (including regex URL matching
for access controls) but here's where the kicker comes in--the proxy has to
communicate through a socks server to get out from our internal network to
the internet.  Squid works OK with runsocks, but  frox does not.

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks,

--Andy

Hi!,

Quote:> I've got another problem though, that I was hoping the group might be able
> to help with--transparent ftp proxying with URL/content filtering.  Looks
> like squid will do this as well, but not transparently.  I've found a
> program called "frox" (v0.6.5) that will do it (including regex URL
> matching for access controls) but here's where the kicker comes in--the
> proxy has to communicate through a socks server to get out from our
> internal network to the internet.  Squid works OK with runsocks, but  frox
> does not.

Squid is capable of doing transparent proxying, but it does require the help
of the gateway to force all the traffic into Squid.  You might find the
information that you require at the http://www.linuxdoc.org site.  There is a
HOWTO there which talks about setting up Transparent Proxying and what needs
to be done.  I am not sure whether the document is also mirrored at the
http://www.squid-cache.org site as well.

See ya

Dean Thompson

--
+____________________________+____________________________________________+

| Bach. Computing (Hons)     | ICQ     - 45191180                         |
| PhD Student                | Office  - <Off-Campus>                     |
| School Comp.Sci & Soft.Eng | Phone   - +61 3 9903 2787 (Gen. Office)    |
| MONASH (Caulfield Campus)  | Fax     - +61 3 9903 1077                  |
| Melbourne, Australia       |                                            |
+----------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

Hi Dean,

Quote:>Squid is capable of doing transparent proxying, but it does require the
help
>of the gateway to force all the traffic into Squid.  You might find the
>information that you require at the http://www.linuxdoc.org site.  There is
a
>HOWTO there which talks about setting up Transparent Proxying and what
needs
>to be done.  I am not sure whether the document is also mirrored at the
>http://www.squid-cache.org site as well.

Thanks, (and thanks for the info on SquidGuard--got that working today), but
unfortunately, it was in the Transparent Proxy with Squid miniHOWTO that I
got the message that using Squid for transparent ftp proxying (its working
for http) wasn't such a good idea, and saw the recommendation for frox
(http://frox.sourceforge.net).  Frox does look like it works OK, until I try
to get it to talk to the socks server, at which point it gives a "writeall:
Bad file descriptor" (or something very close to that) error message.  Oh
well, I guess you can't have it all :(.

Unfortunately though, for the environment that I'm setting this up in, its
required that the content filtering work for both http and ftp.  It looks
like frox supports routing the ftp requests into back to squid (it
translates them into http for input into squid) for caching purposes.  I
don't care about the caching so much, but there might be a chance that this
would get around the problem with frox not working with socks--squid would
do the communication with socks.  I'll give this a try tomorrow and see what
happens.

Thanks again,

--Andy