Internet access is an integral part of any business. It is very important to provide your users with access to sites they need, while restricting access to offensive or inappropriate content at the same time. Blocking these types of sites will increase user productivity and protect your users from harmful content. 602LAN SUITE 2004’s Content Filter add-on gives you the flexibility to define exactly what type of content is available to a specific user or group.

Creating a custom rule

In most situations a user or group needs access to a site that is blocked by a certain filter rule. Let’s say that you would like a group of users to access NEWS sites that are currently blocked under your global rule. These users are using a range of IP addresses beginning with 192.168.1.10 and ending with 192.168.1.15. Your entire network is 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.50 and the 602LAN SUITE server’s IP address is 192.168.1.1. Do the following:

1. Open 602LAN SUITE 2004, click Settings and then Advanced Configuration.
2. Click the Content Filter tab.
3. Edit your existing rule to remove the News category.
4. Click Add Rule, then click the News category.
5. Click Add Hosts, then select the address in IP range option from the drop-down list.
6. For Start IP, enter 192.168.1.2 (the first workstation on your network). For End IP enter 192.168.1.9. Click OK.
7. Click Add Hosts again, select address in IP range, then enter 192.168.1.16 for the Start IP, and 192.168.1.50 for the End IP.
8. Click OK, then OK again to save the new rule.

NOTE: If you are using Proxy Authentication, add specific users to this rule rather than IP ranges.

Custom Error Messages

Now that you have created a custom rule for your users, you can further customize their browsing experience by using a Redirect action in the rule to forward the user to any URL. This is useful for reminding users of your Internet access policy when a user attempts to access a blocked site. To define a custom redirect rule, do the following:

1. From the Content Filter tab in the Advanced Configuration, click the Content Filter rule you would like to edit, then click Edit rule.
2. Click the Redirect to URL radio button.
3. Type the full URL (e.g. http://192.168.1.1/policies/aup.html) to the page you would like your users to be redirected to should they violate this rule.
4. Click OK to save the rule.

NOTE: Only one redirect URL is allowed per rule.