Proxy server setup for school

[Rugbyfan69]

Hey there

Ive been put in charge of setting up a Proxy server (web filter) for our school network which requires a wordlist filter (e.g banned words list), preferably I would like to setup 2 networks one for students and one for the teachers. From what I can imagine this would be done off differnt ports, am I correct in saying this?

The server I have to use is a intel Xeon MP 2.4ghz with 2gb ram and 250gb hdd running windows 2003 standard.

From reading on here I know there is some good free options for this sort of thing which I like, But they are all for linux and I am not that great in linux and would prefer it to run of windows 2k3, but at the same time free or as cheap as possible.


Cheers in Advance
Andrew

[ChrisH]

If you want cheap it will likely be a Linux solution eg Dansguardian and Squid etc. All other solutions will cost plenty of money.

[Rugbyfan69]

If you want cheap it will likely be a Linux solution eg Dansguardian and Squid etc. All other solutions will cost plenty of money.

How user friendly is Dansguardian? Also does it run on ubuntu server as That is the only server version of linux I have any experiance in, but if it dosent I might have to do some learning :P

Cheers Andrew

[ChrisH]

It runs from any flavour of Linux. When you say friendly your really after some kind of front end. Maybe you could look at the Smoothwall community edition with the necessary mods. It wont be as good as Network Guardian but it would be a start. All the info is on the Smoothwall community forums.

[Rugbyfan69]

Cheers for that but from all I can read its a firewall not content filter, Im most likely looking in the wrong place. Would you mind pointing me in the right directions?

Cheers

[tom_newton]

I suppose the need for a front end depends on the number of times a week you need to alter anything - or indeed if other people need to. Often, if you have to configure your own "front end" it can be more work than just learning the backend toolkit

[Rugbyfan69]

I will be the only person using it at this time but I will be leaving in 12 months so I guess the new Tech will need to be able to use it, IF possible a nice web interface/gui that you can add /remove words and sites to filter list

[coquet636]

Hi good luck this saturday, (as if you will need it)..


We use smoothwall express (the free version) here and i aint the best user of linux and managed it fine. We added the advanced proxy and url filter add ons and use them to great effect to manage our internet filtering.

Once installed the web gui is fairly easy to use, i dont bother with most the features just concentrate on the url filter and proxy and seems to work fine...

restart it every weekend but apart from that generally leave it alone.... (if it aint broke dont fix)....


Used to use the censornet free edition before it which is even easier to use but without some of the features of smoothwall. Try looking at that.

[EduTech]

Dansguardian is pretty good and very user friendly.. if you dont have any money to buy something like smoothwall then i would go with that.

James.

[Sylv3r]

We used to use the free version of censornet here on our curriculum network and the free smoothwall version on our wireless network for staff / student laptops.

We are now trialling one of the Smoothwall UTM boxes for both networks currently and are having to tweak it due to it being really strict on the blocking at the moment. Although, all in all it looks a good product and we will be using it as our sole firewall also, eventually.

Now off to read another 10 e-mails from teachers requesting the unblocking of sites!

[tom_newton]

We are now trialling one of the Smoothwall UTM boxes for both networks currently and are having to tweak it due to it being really strict on the blocking at the moment. Although, all in all it looks a good product and we will be using it as our sole firewall also, eventually.

Now off to read another 10 e-mails from teachers requesting the unblocking of sites!

The default policy is necessarily strict - to comply with BECTA's regs, and CIPA (in the states). If there are things you think are being miscategorised though, do let me know. If you just want to chat about settings etc., give me a ring. Might be a bit of a beggar to catch this week but leave a message if im not about and I will ring back (direct line is below)!

[Rugbyfan69]

Ok so I tryed to install dans guardian a few times of a tutorials, I get it installed but not configured :S is there a linux os that is pre setup for being a proxy server?

Cheers

[ChrisH]

I think theres some virtual machines you can download with this kind of configuration.

[Sylv3r]

The default policy is necessarily strict - to comply with BECTA's regs, and CIPA (in the states). If there are things you think are being miscategorised though, do let me know. If you just want to chat about settings etc., give me a ring. Might be a bit of a beggar to catch this week but leave a message if im not about and I will ring back (direct line is below)!

Thanks Tom, I think we are getting on top of it now and have been talking to Gavin over the last couple of weeks.