Question Blocking android and IPad access to Hulu and Netflix

[akoobra]

Manage a small hotel in the sticks with a grand total of 8 mbs and with 40 rooms that goes quick. Have blocked it on PC's and Laptops already but can't find a way to do it to tablets. Running a nighthawk 1600 router

 

[richiestang_78]

Found this

https://kb.netgear.com/24053/How-do...NETGEAR-router-using-the-router-web-interface

 

[bill001g]

How did you manage to block it for PC an laptops. You should be able to use the same filters in the router. The router does not actually know if the device is a pc or a android.

Hulu and netflix are only 2 there are many more amazon for example and then you have things like youtube and twitch. I can't think of a easy way to accomplish this. The router has only a limited number of ip addresses you can block.

What you really need a traffic shaper that would limit traffic to say 1mbps per user. That would allow you have 8 users actively using the internet. You hope since it is such low bandwidth you would not have a lot of people trying to constantly use 1 mbps. Still sometime this is out of the end users control. Windows and android will download patches without asking.

Now your router I think can do basic traffic shaping but it you would need a list of mac/ip addresses. This doesn't work when it can be random devices accessing the system. There also is still a limit to how many rules you can use so it likely will not work even with a list of mac addresses.

Bottom line to accomplish this you are going to need a pc/server of some kind. Most hotels have some kind of captive portal so only guest can use the internet anyway. Some of these captive portal software also allows you to filter traffic. Most these systems run on a linux based OS so you can use standard IPTABLES filters. Not sure you could use PFSENSE free firewall to do the shaping and filtering but I am not sure which captive portal software runs.

All depends on how much money you are willing to spend there are turnkey solutions but they are rather expensive.

 

[nigelivey]

I know it sucks but maybe invest in a second or third connection. Pfsense would indeed achieve what you need and could also handle multiple connections and has a built in captive portal function.

 

[akoobra]

How did you manage to block it for PC an laptops. You should be able to use the same filters in the router. The router does not actually know if the device is a pc or a android.

Hulu and netflix are only 2 there are many more amazon for example and then you have things like youtube and twitch. I can't think of a easy way to accomplish this. The router has only a limited number of ip addresses you can block.

What you really need a traffic shaper that would limit traffic to say 1mbps per user. That would allow you have 8 users actively using the internet. You hope since it is such low bandwidth you would not have a lot of people trying to constantly use 1 mbps. Still sometime this is out of the end users control. Windows and android will download patches without asking.

Now your router I think can do basic traffic shaping but it you would need a list of mac/ip addresses. This doesn't work when it can be random devices accessing the system. There also is still a limit to how many rules you can use so it likely will not work even with a list of mac addresses.

Bottom line to accomplish this you are going to need a pc/server of some kind. Most hotels have some kind of captive portal so only guest can use the internet anyway. Some of these captive portal software also allows you to filter traffic. Most these systems run on a linux based OS so you can use standard IPTABLES filters. Not sure you could use PFSENSE free firewall to do the shaping and filtering but I am not sure which captive portal software runs.

All depends on how much money you are willing to spend there are turnkey solutions but they are rather expensive.

It was blocked via the windstream router for the pc's however it doesn't block the apps access, and sadly neither does netgear, i input the sites I wanted blocked via the keyword option in security but that doesn't work.

 

[akoobra]

I know it sucks but maybe invest in a second or third connection. Pfsense would indeed achieve what you need and could also handle multiple connections and has a built in captive portal function.

We have been trying for a few years to get a second line but they are all being used in this area, no new ones available sadly and no one is dumping their old ones.

 

[akoobra]

How did you manage to block it for PC an laptops. You should be able to use the same filters in the router. The router does not actually know if the device is a pc or a android.

Hulu and netflix are only 2 there are many more amazon for example and then you have things like youtube and twitch. I can't think of a easy way to accomplish this. The router has only a limited number of ip addresses you can block.

What you really need a traffic shaper that would limit traffic to say 1mbps per user. That would allow you have 8 users actively using the internet. You hope since it is such low bandwidth you would not have a lot of people trying to constantly use 1 mbps. Still sometime this is out of the end users control. Windows and android will download patches without asking.

Now your router I think can do basic traffic shaping but it you would need a list of mac/ip addresses. This doesn't work when it can be random devices accessing the system. There also is still a limit to how many rules you can use so it likely will not work even with a list of mac addresses.

Bottom line to accomplish this you are going to need a pc/server of some kind. Most hotels have some kind of captive portal so only guest can use the internet anyway. Some of these captive portal software also allows you to filter traffic. Most these systems run on a linux based OS so you can use standard IPTABLES filters. Not sure you could use PFSENSE free firewall to do the shaping and filtering but I am not sure which captive portal software runs.

All depends on how much money you are willing to spend there are turnkey solutions but they are rather expensive.

This is a small/medium sized hotel (40 rooms and office) so the cost of a server with only the 6 meg speed would be prohibitive to the owners. Only the guests can use the wifi but with 6 meg it doesn't take to long to get really slow (ie 3 people using tablets lol)

Will look at the traffic shaper option but unless we get more bandwith (waiting for google ballons or whatever) it would cause too many complaints (at least we tell them when they check in we have limited bandwidth). It wouldn't be so bad if we had all the phone companies up here but only ATT works in this area.

 

[bill001g]

PFSENSE only requires a old pc. Best with 2 nic cards but you could add a inexpensive one. The size of the server is based on bandwidth and with such a small internet connection I suspect anything you can find will be powerful enough.....well lets say something that is less than 10yrs old.

Still pfsense is a pretty big tool and you are asking for fairly advanced requirements. It will take some study and reading to learn what you need. This is the trade off you get the tool for free but it is not as simple to use as devices that you pay many thousands of dollars for. You are paying for the ease of use and customer support guys you can call to help you.

Most "content" filter type of firewall are mostly useless now days this includes the extremely expensive enterprise ones. Almost all traffic is now encrypted. The keyword searches and URL filters required the ability to see inside the packets which can no longer be be done when you use HTTPS rather that HTTP.

The only option is to block by intercepting the DNS requests and/or attempting to block all the IP addresses