Limited acces (was : Use of Net Nanny in a Lan situation)

[cbearden at sparc.hpl.lib.tx.us]

> Date:          Wed, 6 Aug 1997 00:26:44 -0700
> Reply-to:      lockefeer at limburg.be
> 
> On a par with this question, does anybody know of a way to limit access
> of certain pc's in a lan to the internet, let's say to urls beginning
> with a certain string ?  We would like to use low end PC's as web-based
> OPACs to our catalogue, but our patrons are not supposed to use these
> machines as public internet terminals.

A couple of other options:

1.  Set them up to make all http requests through a proxy server, and 
configure that proxy to grant requests only for certain URLs.  

2.  Put them all behind a packet-filtering gateway and use the 
packet-filtering rules to deny access to all but selected IP 
addresses.  

Solution 2 is probably more technical than 1.  Either could be done 
inexpensively with Linux, but would require some knowledge of Linux 
and of TCP/IP networking.  The proxy solution can also give some 
flexibility and can at times improve network performance by caching 
oft-requested pages.  

Chuck
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Chuck Bearden			email: cbearden at hpl.lib.tx.us
Network Services Librarian
Automation Department		voice: 713/247-2264
Houston Public Library		fax:   713/247-1182
500 McKinney Ave.
Houston, TX  77002		-=> NOT SPEAKING FOR HPL <=- 
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