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Hey all, I'm trying to get opinions on using OpenDNS (OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet) to filter web content for K-12 schools. I've tested it in a small sample and it seems decent, so long as we can prevent users from changing DNS settings. Pros: Saves our district ~ $7,000 USD a year for filtering license Uses a category database that another pay-for product uses (I want to say it's the iGuard database that the iPrism uses, but I've looked at some many recently I could be wrong). Allows for black/white list URL's similar to our currently filtering (Fortinet) Cons: Generally untested Doesn't provide deep packet inspection and dynamic proxy blocking like other pay-for sources (DeepNines as an example) If anyone's using this, I'd love their take on it. We're converting from a Novell network to Microsoft and expect to use group policy to prevent changes to DNS - if anyone knows why that won't work, please give me a shout, too. (I'm new to GP but am learning quickly). Hope everyone's doing well. Thanks as always. Damian Bailey Lead Tech Louisa County Schools, VA, USA

Hi guys I have been having a bit of a nightmare... We've had internet speed and connectivity drops for some time. My initial thought was an issue with the web filter (Lightspeed), as since we upgraded to 3.0 in about September 17 we had difficulties sometimes logging in etc. Anyway several updates later etc, I was assured that it wasn't an issue with our rocket. We then started looking at all kinds of other things. Our DNS servers (which were only virtualised last summer) I thought could have been an issue, then we were looking at our ISP as our bandwidth was maxxing out sometimes, then back to the filter as they'd released a new user agent (the LMA) which I wasn't aware of, a dodgy internal server was also looked at. So at 3:30 Friday afternoon, which was an INSET Day so most staff left by that point, our internet fully goes down. Up until that it'd only been drops. We unplug the entire network and patch things back in looking for a loop or something. Turns out that when we remove the web filter all is absolutely perfect, speeds faster than ages, non drops or anything. By this point I'd accepted that our out of warranty six year old filter had had it. I speak to their support guys in America, and run a workaround plan by them. Workaround is to create a Virtual Rocket, backup the database and config from the physical and restore that to the virtual and then change the IP of the virtual to that of the physical, unplug the physical and hope that the clients user agent talks to the virtual as if it were physical. Their support guys said that's a great idea and I should go for it. So I have spent the weekend creating a virtual rocket, and doing all that (given that the physical was faulting that took longer than I'd hoped). But it seems that using a virtual as a filter on its own without a physical does not work. Their support guy who's oncall today on his own isn't sure why. My staff and students return on Tuesday, with tomorrow being bank holiday and me actually being off until Thursday. My workaround this evening is remove our current DNS forwarders and use OpenDNS. This seems to be working fine, but I just read on another post that the free version is limited to 50 users. Without really having the opportunity to test 50 users prior to Tuesday morning I wondered if anyone has any info on this limitation? Can't see anything about it on their website. Any suggestions would be welcome at this time. No V-Lans here and staff IPs are mixed in with students.... Cheers for any suggestions in advance...