Hi – My home network as a multitude of devices, and I'd like to have more control over how my kids access the internet. We have DSL service, with the DSL modem connected to an Apple Airport Extreme. We have some wired devices (Dish Network receiver, Blu Ray player, Apple TV, 1 computer, 1 printer) and several wireless devices (notebook computers, tablets, media players, game consoles, phones, etc…) I have a secured wireless network and a guest wireless network, too. Overall, things work great, the network is stable and performance is quite good throughout the house. My main concern is that my kids are getting older, and its getting more and more difficult to control how and when they access the internet.
My goal is to come up with a way to log access by user or device and restrict access time by user or device. For example, my laptop or my wife's tablet (or living room Apple TV) can have 24/7 access, by my kids' computers, game systems and tablets won't have access from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am for example… I *think* a transparent proxy might be the route I need to take, but I'm out of my depth at this level of network knowledge. I know what I have at work (a large corporation) would seem to be a good approach, in that there is no need to login to the proxy server or deal with proxy server configuration on the client end, but filtering, logging and access controls are in place.
My hope is that I can build a cheap mini-PC, such as the OEM Production 2550L2D-MxPC Intel NM10 2 x 204Pin Intel GMA 3650 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System (about $130 on Newegg, plus some extra cash for memory and storage). I've seen several Linux-based proxy/firewall solutions (Squidd, for example), but I get lost pretty quickly trying to figure out if this is a good solution. Since this has dual gigabit ethernet ports, I was hoping I could put it between my Airport Extreme and DSL modem.
Does anyone see any fatal flaws in this approach? Any suggestions on a better way to get this done (if it is even possible?)
Thanks!
My goal is to come up with a way to log access by user or device and restrict access time by user or device. For example, my laptop or my wife's tablet (or living room Apple TV) can have 24/7 access, by my kids' computers, game systems and tablets won't have access from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am for example… I *think* a transparent proxy might be the route I need to take, but I'm out of my depth at this level of network knowledge. I know what I have at work (a large corporation) would seem to be a good approach, in that there is no need to login to the proxy server or deal with proxy server configuration on the client end, but filtering, logging and access controls are in place.
My hope is that I can build a cheap mini-PC, such as the OEM Production 2550L2D-MxPC Intel NM10 2 x 204Pin Intel GMA 3650 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System (about $130 on Newegg, plus some extra cash for memory and storage). I've seen several Linux-based proxy/firewall solutions (Squidd, for example), but I get lost pretty quickly trying to figure out if this is a good solution. Since this has dual gigabit ethernet ports, I was hoping I could put it between my Airport Extreme and DSL modem.
Does anyone see any fatal flaws in this approach? Any suggestions on a better way to get this done (if it is even possible?)
Thanks!
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