Keywords: URL Blocking ,Content Filtering, Parental Control
Recently during some of my research work I came to know many times parents / individuals feel that some how they can do URL Blocking or Content Filtering for some inappropriate data to be seen by children/users at home/office etc. Today’s routers are capable to fulfill this need. However I saw many queries how to do this. In my this post I will cover how to do URL Blocking or Content Filtering. If you have an advanced router good.. 🙂 If no, don’t worry… I’ll show how you can still achieve this functionality.
First step towards this, is to access your router’s in-built web-server/web UI. Every router has this. Follow these steps to connect with your router‘s UI:
1. Find out your router’s address.
A.) Through command prompt
On Windows XP/ Windows 7 :
Open command prompt by run > cmd – Enter
give command – ipconfig
See the ip address of gateway in result, this is your router’s address.
On Linux :
Open terminal window and give command : route
See the ip-address of gateway in result, this is your router’s address.
B.) Through GUI
On Windows XP/ Windows 7 :
Right click on your LAN/WLAN icon (right side) on task bar and choose status.
Now click on Support and you will get your router’s address.
2. Now open your internet browser and type your address that you get in step 1.
From the above step we get it as 192.168.0.225( This is foe my router, yours might be different.)
Type: http://192.168.0.225
This may ask for user authentication before opening the web UI or after opening the web UI to proceed further. See your router’s specification to know default user name and password combination. In case you or anybody else has changed to it anything else , please refer to your router’s documentation to reset it.
3. Look if your router give you options like URL Blocking / Content Filtering / Parental Lock etc. If you find it, that’s it.
a.) If your router gives all the options then you don’t have to do much. Just provide URLs or content’s keyword that you want to block.
b.) If your router has URL Blocking functionality and you need Content Filtering, follow step 4-5.
c.) If you want to some specific web-sites like social sites manually then you have to give their ip address manually.
4. Go to http://www.opendns.com/ and sign up for a free account. Depending upon your need business/home, choose an option, sign up for free service or paid service if you want more control.
5. After creating your account, opendns will provide you two DNS server’s address. For the sake of an example I’m taking :
225.123.0.12
221.124.1.123
Go to your router’s web UI , and in DHCP server settings/ Internet settings/ WLAN settings/ LAN settings, you’ll find two options for DNS server. Change it with the address you have given by OpenDNS. Save all the settings and exit.
There are many more ways to achieve URL Blocking / Content Filtering / Parental Lock, but it always depends upon your need and system configuration. Many firewall software are available for both Linux and Windows system. You can search and install them . Soon I’ll post something about that too. Till then …. 🙂
Note: If you have any query regarding any step or need more information, please leave a comment.
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