Router Choice? Content Filter?

bazooka

Hi,

I am looking for a router (good value) that will offer adsl/firewall/wireless etc, but also need something quirky - i need to be able to check what websites are being visited by the users etc - some users will be Iphone, Itouch, Laptop, Wired Desktop etc...

Does anyone have any ideas?

thanks

Ruaidhri

bazooka wrote: »

Hi,

I am looking for a router (good value) that will offer adsl/firewall/wireless etc, but also need something quirky - i need to be able to check what websites are being visited by the users etc - some users will be Iphone, Itouch, Laptop, Wired Desktop etc...

Does anyone have any ideas?

thanks

Yeah, get a Cisco 877 (Or similar) and use either Policy Based Routing or WCCP to sent www to a proxy (like squid). I'm pretty sure any 'enterprise' class router will let you do PBR, but WCCP is more fault tolerant. . Offhand I dont know of a router which will do Content Filtering / L7 inspection, but having a separate proxy might make scaling easier for you going forward.

(Disclaimer: I work for Cisco)

vibe666

sorry, I'm a bit late to the party but I might have a cheap solution for you.

I'm assuming this is a regular cheap adsl connection with a dynamic IP, but it'll be even easier if you have a static IP as you won't need any hardware at all.

OpenDNS is a free DNS provider who give you the option of setting up an account with them and logging DNS requests as required as well as controlling what sites are visited.

if you have a static IP address then that's grand, just set up an account with them and set your existing hardware to use the OpenDNS servers for DNS requests and you're one.

if it's a dynamic IP address, some models of router are compatible with certain 3rd party firmwares that will allow you send IP address updates to online services such as OpenDNS and DynDNS etc.

specifically I'm thinking something in the WRT54G range or compatible Bufallo or Asus routers that can use either the DD-WRT or Tomato 3rd party firmwares which would allow you to use the Dynamic DNS update feature directly from the router in conjunction with a registered OpenDNS account to both log what sites are visited and block certain undesirable sites as required.

personally, I'd go for the latest version of the Tomato firmware for the WRT54G (currently v1.23) which is by far the best firmware I've used on these great little routers and offers a host of other features like bandwidth monitoring and very good QoS that would most likely interest you too.

THIS router is pretty good for the money and comes pre-installed with DD-WRT, but if I got one te first thing I'd do is put Tomato on it, it I don't know of anyone who's switch back to DD-WRT after trying it, other than the few people who'd need to use multiple wireless ssid's, which is something DD-WRT does that most other firmwares do not.

Oh, and you can get tomato HERE

before you get all worried, the firmware update is as simple as downloading a new firmware, logging into the GUI and uploading the firmware file from your PC and rebooting the router, it takes 5 minutes and is a piece of cake.

actually, if you wanted to test Tomato out before you even do anything, there's a 'virtual gui' of it HERE although it can be a bit slow and isn't always up, it's a good place to see exactly what you get with the firmware, which is a heck of a lot.

(DISCLAIMER: no, i'm not anything to do with tomato, I just like it a lot! )