Topic: how can sme server help me with user internet activity

[purvis]

How can sme server help me with user http/https internet activity?
I know this is a broad question but i think it is the only way i find solutions without being so specific and i know there are some really keen people on this forum.

I would be interested in all kinds of answers to this broad question.

My immediate needs are monitor and manage other computers using  http and https
1. Log all users(computers ip addresses) access to all websites
2. Filter out a long list of unwanted websites(advertising, known bad sites to visit, etc)
3. Possibly allow/disallow websites by time of day
4. Block phishing if there is a way
5. Block any thing that maybe considered harmful
6. Manage the log files(basically keep the log files for long periods of time 2 or three years.
7. IF possible, maybe have a user to have to provide a password to access the internet

FYI on some of my doing.
One of things i have been doing is having machines that users vnc into to access the internet, this is for the purpose of safe guarding(protecting) the main network.
I am using double natted routers with my main working network behind the second router, this gives highband throughput to any machines in between the main router and the second router protecting the main network.
I have been playing with VMware server and installing windows 2000 pro virtual machines where there is just one non-administrative user that logs into the windows operating system.
I did install  VMware server on the new sme8beta 6 software on a Intel dual core machine and had great results of performance but had a problem when installing more than a three virtual machines running concurrently.
Because the low amount of memory a 32-bit operating machine can have has made me looking into a 64-bit linux Virtual host.
Because i am so use to the sme software, it would be good to make use of what sme has to offer, i could use sme server as a virtual machine to do all kinds of stuff in supporting the windows virtual machines and what i am trying to get done.
But the sme server runs the smoothest on an intel motherboard for what i am trying to do a host.
I am trying my best to use  the SME server as the host machine to the virtual machines, so i could use the SME Server's host software without installing the Sme Server as virtual machine off another linux server.
When i use the SME Server to run windows 2000 virtual machines on the Intel dual core processor, the cpu load is much lower than ubuntu 64-bit linux as a host to VMware Server and actually there performance is much better on the SME Server.

Before i spend a lot of time, i just wanted to know Sme Server can help me get.
I want to say that we use Firefox as the web browser and i can lock down the proxy in firefox and we lock out internet activity using other software with Internet Lock by using TopLang Software.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Stability and dependability is also of great concern, which is one reason i personally like using SME Server as a host or non host linux system.
 





 

[Jean-Philippe Pialasse]

Hello,

first you will need to set SME as server gateway

1. Log all users(computers ip addresses) access to all websites

SARG is what you need for this see the wiki to install the contrib

2. Filter out a long list of unwanted websites(advertising, known bad sites to visit, etc)

Dansguardian is waht you need here , see the wiki to install it

3. Possibly allow/disallow websites by time of day

see 2.

4. Block phishing if there is a way

see 2.

5. Block any thing that maybe considered harmful

see 2. you might need to configure Clamav as plugin to analyse website content and downloaded files
you will also need a strong configuration (CPU and memory)

6. Manage the log files(basically keep the log files for long periods of time 2 or three years.

see 1.

7. IF possible, maybe have a user to have to provide a password to access the internet

see 2. or simply configure squid  and google to configure it to ask for password  with squid or with dansguardian if it is between squid and the user.

Before i spend a lot of time, i just wanted to know Sme Server can help me get.
I want to say that we use Firefox as the web browser and i can lock down the proxy in firefox and we lock out internet activity using other software with Internet Lock by using TopLang Software.

by design sme proxy is transparent and if you configure dansguardian it could be also transparent or with login/password in order to have different filtering policy.

[purvis]

Is there anyway to run this software in a bridged mode kind of way.
I am now for the first time using my firefox web browser and having it use my production sme server and having it go thru the squid proxy.
I needed to see the access log results.
In how i am using the server, i have a question, does the proxy only take care of my web request and the returning web information come back bypassing my sme server and going straight to my computer. If that is the case, then i can see how i could not catch information returning from web and only managing web request.

thanks