Securing the Office Network

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punsgaur

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Requirement: Time based ( scheduling ) blocking of certain software's and websites like g talk, messenger, torrent clients, facebook, orkut etc. I want to control access to programs and websites from my laptop and also provide this control to another person when I am not in office and basically provide access for certain hours to such programs and websites.

Hardware & Software in the Office:
1. PC's : 10 pc's and laptops with different versions of windows
2. 450 TC1 modem & adsl2 router
3. Switch: Netgear JFS516 16 ports of 10/100.

1 Laptop is acting as the basic server for file storage which is connected to the modem by LAN and there is the Modem to Switch LAN connection.
All other PC's are connected to Switch by LAN.

Some laptops access internet through Wi-Fi.

Do I need hardware based solution or there is a free or paid software based solution for my requirement. If I can get other securities like network antivirus / firewall along with this, that would be great.

Thanks
 
for commercial use I would suggest something like a juniper ssg5

schedule based policy is fairly simple to set up
 
they can be picked up on ebay for about $100, but that is without any support.

a new one would probably go for about $500+ depending on which reseller is used + support/licensing.

you really want to be looking at something in this class though for a business solution.

when fully licensed they can also do virus and web filtering.
 
500 $ might be out of budget. Any other company/ options for the same or something else.
 
Checkpoint or Palo Alto would work aswell but they make Juniper look cheap :D

Astaro may support schedules but im not 100% and dont have much experience with them.

Untangle also seems to support time based policys, but again I have little experience here.

the "cheapest" way i can think of would be to build a linux box with iptables and have different rule sets implemented a different times via cron...not really something I would reccomend for a business network.

a custom solution in my experience comes down to how much time you are willing to invest setting it up to do what you want and how much experience you have with the system in question.
 
dashpuppy said:
Untangle works good :)
Click to expand...

He wants time based protocol control, untangle wont do this. he would also need to use a directory connector(paid) to be able to setup policies for users, which iirc will allow him to setup time based www policies.
 
ipfire is a free firewall solution. it will give you time of day restrictions, comes configured for 4 ports (green for internal network, blue for wireless network, orange for DMZ, and red for your internet connection).

you can block p2p software, and may other site groups (porn, adware, web mail, social media, online shopping...)

you can make custom blacklist, custom white list...

Not going to give you AV for the clients, but for that you would be able to just use Microsoft Security Essentials if looking for the cheap / free route as that can be used in businesses with less than 25 clients.

All you would need is a server to run ipfire from. Tested untangle and ipfire and liked Ipfire a lot more.
 
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