Internet filtering solutions

[Bongo]

Hiya, looking for some advice here...

 

We currently have an ancient Navaho TeamCat server which supplies us with integrated proxy, internet filtering, email system and webaccess to email and folders. Now everyone here including me hates the email and collaboration side but I have to admit the internet filtering is pretty good, especially the facility where users are temporarily disabled from Internet access when they try to visit 20 blacklisted sites. I have been asked to replace the server so I am investigating alternatives.

 

Ideally I'd like solutions that I could use on our mac osx servers but I'm probably going to go with exchange server and citrix for folder access. I was wondering whether there are any suggestions for a decent filtering solution that I could use?

 

Simon

[FN-GM]

Well they are not for Mac but you could use Surf control, Bess, Smartfilter & Websence is pretty good although for some reason it doesn’t let you post on edugeek. I believe the open source Linux squid proxy server has a content filter.

[webman]

For filtering: You might be able to get Squid and Dansguardian on OS X as it's just BSD, but don't quote me on that one. Or just on a Linux box. Or go with a special Linux distro such as IPCop with addons Advproxy and URLFilter addons.

 

For email, you can get more features on a more reliable system than Exchange (and at no cost) by using Zimbra.

[FN-GM]

if you have a apple machine with an intel chip use bootcamp for windows

[mattx]

Whats wrong with the E-mail system - we use Navaho and its great. Its secure, it robust, over the years we have had it I have only ever had to replace a fan in the thing....

If you are not a fan of the E-mail side of things [ using the web mail aspect ] use outlook or another E-mail app and setup IMAP.

This months SC magazine had some reviews on what you are after - checkout

 

http://www.scmagazine.com/uk/products/listbycategory

[tom_newton]

I'm biased, but as School filter systems go, you have to travel a long way to beat our Guardian filters... i'm sure you'll find a few of our customers on here will tell you the same

 

If you want to try an evaluation, *don't* call me because I am about to go on holiday for 3 weeks, and you'll get voicemail :-P but try 0113 3874168 and ask for Gav Logan.

[zag]

We use a hardware box called cachepilot, its pretty good and has some nice LDAP integration now I believe.

 

Not so impressed with the logging yet but I need to investigate it some more.

[plock]

I didn't get on with the Cache Pilot. I had major issues with Windows Updates until I implemented WSUS.

 

I've moved over too NWT InteliGuard Filtering, it's very good. It also supports Mac OS X.

 

http://www.inteliguard.net

 

We have 20/30 Mac's and they run perfectly through it.

 

Hope that helps!

[Geoff]

Linux box running Squid and Dansguardian here (Smoothwall on the cheap basically).

[tom_newton]

Cachepilot should see some filtering improvements - they're OEMing our filter... reporting may come later though we will have to wait & see.

[Bongo]

For email, you can get more features on a more reliable system than Exchange (and at no cost) by using Zimbra.

 

We,ve just been quoted $5000 for Zimbra!! Am I looking in the wrong place as M$ would only cost around £250 a year on our schools agreement.

 

Whats wrong with the E-mail system - we use Navaho and its great. Its secure, it robust, over the years we have had it I have only ever had to replace a fan in the thing....

If you are not a fan of the E-mail side of things [ using the web mail aspect ] use outlook or another E-mail app and setup IMAP.

 

I really can't get on with the webmail, I agree everything is there you need and it's very robust but the interface is dire and its use of IMAP seems flakey to me, too many users problems seting up up folders etc..! Also and more importantly no macs in school can run through its proxy or filtering, just refuses to accept the password. The Navaho support I have to say leaves me cold and they have also declared the box obsolete now.

 

I'll investigate the filtering software suggested by everyone, thanks

 

Simon

[Geoff]

We,ve just been quoted $5000 for Zimbra!! Am I looking in the wrong place as M$ would only cost around £250 a year on our schools agreement.

 

Grab the Opensource edition

 

http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.html

[Bongo]

We,ve just been quoted $5000 for Zimbra!! Am I looking in the wrong place as M$ would only cost around £250 a year on our schools agreement.

 

Grab the Opensource edition

 

http://www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.html

 

EEk! Now I'm not a wuss but I get all sweaty and nervous when I consider Open source for the school systems. I'm quite happy to use joomla for websites or any other number of small gpl utilities but the whole school email, calendaring, collaboration system :gulp: now that's serious! Are you sure this would be a good idea... I recall a saying "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" 8O

[Geoff]

Try it out in VMWare first then. Plus there's quite a few people here who use it. As far as OSS goes, it's fairly idiot proof.

[tom_newton]

Think Geoff's suggestion applies to a lot of things - VMWare is a great environment for making rookie mistakes

[webman]

EEk! Now I'm not a wuss but I get all sweaty and nervous when I consider Open source for the school systems.

 

Becta thinks its okay. There are many advantages to using open source within education. Not every problem has to be solved by throwing wads of cash and a Microsoft product at it

[Geoff]

The relevant BECTA reports are here:

 

http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=15524&page=1661&year=2005&month=12

[Bongo]

Looking specifically at the filtering side of things I like to look of the linux based solutions like smoothwall. I have looked at our local swgfl solution which is RM SafetyNet Plus and was wondering what advantages I am getting by adding our own layer of filtering locally? :-k