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The Internet Software

Metered HTTP Proxy? 138

Posted by Cliff from the internet-traffic-cop-(and-parent) dept.
Jon asks: "My brother-in-law has three teenage daughters. The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online. I am trying to find him an HTTP proxy server that has metering built in. I started with Squid which has the authentication stuff in it but we would like something where we could allocate minutes, like some of the WiFi stuff you encounter at a hot spot."
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Metered HTTP Proxy?

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  • Got the same problem here... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @07:54PM (#11063083)
    My requirements:
    - need to be able to limit each daughter to e.g. 1Gb of traffic. Once they hit that, bzzt, no more Internet access till next month. After that, they can either experience the joys of 28kb/s downloading or grovel at someone's feet to let them browse under another login id
    - each daughter needs to be able to check how much Internet "allowance" she has left
    - need to be able to limit use to a specific period of the day. With holidays coming up, I don't want them to be sitting in their rooms all day chatting... Ideally, I'd be able to block out individual sites (e.g. MSN) while leaving other stuff untouched
    - need to be able to block out the most noxious sites. For some reason, teenage girls can't seem to resist downloading crapware if it calls itself "PicOfGoodCharlotte.exe" or something similar...

    Yep, I'm aware that I could set up something that does most/all of this, but frankly there's not enough hours in the day at present to do so.

    • Re:Got the same problem here... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Klowner ( 145731 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @07:57PM (#11063096) Homepage
      ..So as punishment, you force them to browse the internet at speeds I can just barely achieve because I live in the middle of fscking nowhere..

      You sir, have made my day.
    • teenage girls can't seem to resist downloading crapware if it calls itself "PicOfGoodCharlotte.exe"
      There's no known remedy for bad taste in music...
    • - need to be able to block out the most noxious sites. For some reason, teenage girls can't seem to resist downloading crapware if it calls itself "PicOfGoodCharlotte.exe" or something similar...

      This is easy. Install linux, put mozilla on it with maybe the flash plugin if you're feeling generous.
    • Why do you actually "need" this? Would your life be so much worse if you just let them use the Internet however they wanted?
    • >> need to be able to limit each daughter to e.g. 1Gb of traffic [...]After that, they can either experience the joys of 28kb/s

      If your ISP caps your download, I can see the point of that. But if not, why would you limit them? It's not as if storage is expensive any more. Limiting their downloads for a spurious reason is an incredibly shitty thing to do.

      And reducing them to 28.8k? The only word I can think of to describe that is "lame."

      I can understand why parents what to censor their kids' time
    • grovel at someone's feet to let them browse under another login id

      Maybe they'll just go to the local $evil_person (drugdealer, pimp, vb-coder, terrorist, choose one) and grovel at his err... feet...
      You never know.
    • If you run windows, and are willing to drop the 50 bucks, the newest version of netnanny will do much of what you are looking for. I've never thought much of the commercial monitoring software, but that is some good stuff. I installed it on a client's computer about a year ago, and set up different logins, etc, times of use.
      The only problem I see here is that you may have multiple computers, which may be the case, but I don't see it mentioned in the initial post. If that's the case, the whole situation bec

  • Occam's Razor (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @07:59PM (#11063106)
    My brother-in-law has three teenage daughters. The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online.

    I don't think so. There are a lot simpler carrots and sticks available, in order of decreasing importance to the average teenage girl:

    1) Telephone privs - no cell phone for you
    2) Grounding - no hanging out at the mall for you
    3) Allowance - no buying the latest MTV-hyped fad product for you
    4) Television privs - no watching MTV-hyped commercials-as-content for you
    5) Driving privs - no freedom to move about for you
    6) Food - no bulemia practice for you

    • Re:Occam's Razor (Score:3, Insightful)

      by captnitro ( 160231 )
      Unless, of course, they're nerd children, in which case all of the above examples make the assumption they have friends to talk to, hang out with, purchase identical sweaters with, be popular with by having seen TRL, drive to, or finally, throw up on.
      • I am, and I'd have to agree. Of course, I would just find a way around whatever limitaitons were in place, but, not every nerd knows Linux, even though they all should ;)

        Either way, cutting off my internet access would only serve to piss me off. Instead of talking on IM all the time, I'd just write a kernel security model or something in my free time.

        Either of them would fill up just as much time.

    • I don't think so. There are a lot simpler carrots and sticks available, in order of decreasing importance to the average teenage girl:

      1) Telephone privs - no cell phone for you
      ...

      While I'm sure there's some variance on this, I'd be willing to wager that IM has knocked out the phone as the most important thing. Sure, it's not the only thing, but judging from the kids at the school where I teach, IM is the major lifeline. After all, why talk with just one friend when you can "talk" with 20 at the s

    • I don't think so. There are a lot simpler carrots and sticks available, in order of decreasing importance to the average teenage girl:

      Not just girls, these are pretty gender neutral.

      1) Telephone privs - no cell phone for you

      Fine, I'll just go put on my raincoat, hop on my bike and ride to one of this city's many phone booths with a closing door when I need the phone. They stay warm year round, are sheltered and have a light. (I have done this, and I had friends that stashed a 25-pound portable compu

      • Please. This is Oregon.
        How many Oregonians does it takes to change a light-bulb?

        Eleven.
        One to unscrew the light bulb and put a new one in, and
        ten to keep away all those Californians wishing to share the experience.

        • How many Oregonians does it takes to change a light-bulb?

          Eleven. One to unscrew the light bulb and put a new one in, and ten to keep away all those Californians wishing to share the experience.

          No shit. I really wish most of those bastards would spend lots of money and then remember to leave when they're done visiting.

      • If you really think and act that way, then you have sold me on the scouts for my own children.
  • To compliment Jah-Wren Ryel'scomments, my brother (for his younger kids) uses a timer - once a half hour is up, they are OFF the computer. Why not do the same things for the teenage daughters?

    Low tech, but works.

    P.S. Blocking sites is a never-ending battle IMHO - Corporations (with dedicated IT teams) can't keep up with the spammers. I'd just review their surfing history occasionally and ask 'em about it.

  • OpenBSD's Authpf (Score:3, Informative)

    by jhealy1024 ( 234388 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @08:11PM (#11063160)

    Have you considered OpenBSD's Authpf? Here's the description [openbsd.org] and man page [openbsd.org].

    It runs on an OpenBSD firewall (which may be a pain for you; not sure what you've got installed already).

    Anyway, what it does is it prevents packets from flowing UNLESS the user has authenticated to the firewall via an ssh session. From there, the packets are tagged as belonging to the user, and you can deal with a particular user's packets as you wish (prioritize, block, redirect, etc).

    If you could apply standard login controls (amount of time, time of day, etc), then you can effectively limit access to the internet with the same granularity...

    • Proxys are too easy to get around. You'd end up having to lock down the desktops as well. At some point you'd probably want to extend the lockdown to IM, p2p etc.

      Start clean and extensible. I advize you to follow jhealys advise - start at the network layer. You're gonna lose the turn-key soho router in favour of a custom firewall/router. Network metering will be ip/mac specific/box specific but you can incorporate some authentication aspect.

      Try looking for something on Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] or Google [google.com]
      • I'm assuming they run windows here. Put the proxy IP in and don't them give admin rights. Viola! No getting around the proxy.
      • you can't get around a proxy if the firewall blocks all traffic not going through the proxy.
        • This is true... within reason. However, the original poster only wanted to implement a proxy. A good approach to a complex problem usually involves condering a hierachy of potential solutions. At the very least, we can make the effort to intrude intensive enough to discourage the casual and intermediate hacker. The reality is that anyone with sufficient dedication will eventually surpass the most severe battery of defenses. Its not aways the fault of the solution provider! Mitnick made a (criminal) career o
    • Have you considered OpenBSD's Authpf? Here's the description and man page.
      It runs on an OpenBSD firewall (which may be a pain for you; not sure what you've got installed already).
      But isn't BSD dead or dying???
      • It's very much alive and kicking. I just started using freebsd and I love it. Whatever gave you the idea that BSD is dying?
        • You mean http://bsd.slashdot.org/? Where they talk about the TENTH release of NetBSD, or the FIFTEENTH(?) release of OpenBSD?


          Oh, I see now: your post was just a troll. No educated geek actually believes that BSD is dying out. Even if Microsoft did finally stop running their dinky little hotmail service on FreeBSD (I hear it took them 3.1 tries to get it to run on NT :-)).

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday December 11, 2004 @08:13PM (#11063172) Homepage Journal
    I realize that parents don't want their kid on the internet all the time, and like to encourage other acitivities, but why resort to something like this? It seems to me that the better idea would be to actually talk to the kids when it seems like they've been spending too much time online. Arbitrary rules like this only make kids see parents as a rival, and rules like this as something to try to get around, intstead of a reasonable guideline from people with more life experience.
    • Hell, if they find out ways to get around stuff like authpf, they can *have* their internet access, and then I'll tell them their internet access is now directly linked to their progress on proving P/NP.

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fuzzybunny ( 112938 )
        Good point, actually--you don't even need a good blocking system; just dump a couple of manuals in their room, or at least a Linux/FreeBSD installation CD with a post-it note saying "THE MANUALS ARE IN /USR/SHARE/DOC" and let them figure it out from there. Let them do their homework on a stripped-down Winblows box without a network card; I'm sure the PCs at their local library will give them the net access they need for research on school projects.

        You wouldn't literally be forcing them to code something

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

      by St. Arbirix ( 218306 )
      When I was growing up there were no arbitrary rules and no metering. I basically had 150 hours a month of internet. Did my parents try to get me off? Yes. How hard was it for them to actually get me off it without me seeing them as rivals against my wants, impossible. All the kind pleas we're easily countered with "Yeah, hold on." and "Oh, wait, lemme finish this." They held and it never finished. In the end I'd spend hours on end on the computer, sometimes so much that people couldn't call the house. If on

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:27PM (#11063758) Homepage Journal
        I guess it depends a lot on the kid, there is no one size fits all style of parenting. I have to admit I have no experience with having kids, having quite recently been one myself, however I have the following experience to share:
        My parents divorced when I was very young, and shareed equal custody. They both had very different parenting styles. My father was very strict, trying to micro-manage every aspect of my and my step-siblings lives. We were allowed 20 minutes a day on the computer, not one second left. We were allowed exactly 3 phone calls a night, each one up to 10 minutes in length, not one second over. We were not allowed to talk to anyone on the phone, visit and internet sites, or read any books without his review and approval. The list goes on.
        My mother, on the other hand, took a much more "live and let live" style of parenting. If I wanted to do something, then I did it, and if I made a bad decision then I had to deal with the consequences, she was there to help guide me and to grow up and find my own sence of what was right and wrong, and to learn the difference between good and bad decisions, but she left it up to me in the end. If I wanted to watch some violent or sex filled movie, or play some violent video game, or read some edgy book, then I could- of course she was also there to talk to me about it and provide a context for what I was seeing.
        Of course, when I was with my father I never cared about his rules, other than as something to get around. When I was with my mom on the other hand, I genuinely tried to make decisions that would not dissapoint her. Sure if I were talking on the phone for a minute longer than I was supposed to at my fathers I would be grounded for a month, and I think I could have gotten arrested and my mother wouldn't have done anything other than have a talk with me, but I cared that my mother was dissapointed in me, and that's what made the difference.
        Sure I might have developed a few bad habbits because my mom would let me do what I wanted, but in the end I think that I am much better off for her style of parenting.

      • Do you want me to call your parents to tell them to stop you reading Slashdot?

      • So, basically, because you were a lazy asshole with no self-control, every parent in the world should apply those standards to their kids?

        Am I reading this right? You "feel all kinds of regret and spite" because YOU were incapable of getting off YOUR tushy? Your parents should have forced you to do something like that, instead of treating you as a rational and competent human being?

        Growing up, I spent a lot of time on the Internet. I also:

        • Had my own freelance consulting business.
        • Did system administr
    • 'why' is not the question.
      hijacking an ask slashdot because you dont agree with or understand the need is both offtopic and rude.
      seems like all of the comments so far are more of what you have offered: UNconstructive criticism.
    • Nowhere in the post does it say that his friend has not discussed time spent online with his kids. All it says is that he's looking for something to meter the amount of online time they're spending. Far all you know, this is a *result* of discussing it with his kids. The kind of thing he's looking for will enable them all to be informed about the amount of time spent websurfing, whether that's to help enforce the house rules, or clear up any disagreements about exactly how much time is being spent on the in
    • You have to start somewhere. And I sure didn't listen to anyone when I was younger.
    • Why? Cause we're nerds damnit! I have the netgear router and it has the ability to filter access based on IP address, so if kid A has a computer 192.168.0.100 and kid B has 192.168.0.101 then I can give them different access and different times to log on. It even allows port blocking on a day/time basis and can email me when someone goes soemwhere they shouldn't. God, i want to have kids just so i can use these features!
  • Dude - has your brother-in-law considered a non-technological alternative? He could try (drum-roll please) treating his daughters like human beings. Because if he's concentrating his efforts on how to control and punish them, maybe he should leave home and get a dog.
    • This post wins. Jon's best bet is to tell his brother in law to go sodomize himself, and maybe bring up that there are better things to do with your life than finding new ways to screw your kids and make their lives miserable in fun new ways. His bro wouldn't be too happy about hearing this (which will likely be taken out on the kids soon-after), but it beats being an accessory to all this.
    • Why bother controlling them with technology when emotional abuse/neglect is much more ...

      ... permanent?

    • Re:"The only thing..." (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis@@@ubasics...com> on Saturday December 11, 2004 @09:16PM (#11063431) Homepage Journal
      He could try (drum-roll please) treating his daughters like human beings.

      I'm glad we have such an expert on how to treat people like human beings.

      So please enlighten us. How is limiting access to the internet to a reasonable amount of time (depending on the PARENT's standards/values/beliefs) not treating them like human beings?

      If your child sat in front of the TV every waking moment they weren't forced to do something else, you would, I hope, limit their access. It's the same situation with computers in many cases. It's interactive, and possible to do many different things with the computer where the TV may be more limited, but if they're on the computer 8 hours a day and you don't consider it a problem then it will become a huge problem for them later in life.

      Guaranteed.

      As far as using the internet as a 'carrot', what about that do you really object to? Do you believe that children always make good choices with no parental influence? Do you believe choices children make don't affect their entire life? I certianly believe in letting them make their own decisions, but I'm going to curb them if they start going down a path I disagree strongly with, and I'll especially block them as much as possible if they start making decisions which will change their lives in a bad way.

      Some decisions, made as children, have major lifelong consequences. It's better, in my opinion (and far easier!), to have lots of little nudges in the right direction constantly than to try to force several huge changes occasionally.

      Personnally I prefer the carrot approach, rather than the stick, in helping my children make good choices.

      Lastly, are you suggesting that animal mistreatment is acceptable? Why would you suggest that instead of parenting classes, if you honestly thought there was a problem?

      -Adam

      • Re:"The only thing..." (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So please enlighten us. How is limiting access to the internet to a reasonable amount of time (depending on the PARENT's standards/values/beliefs) not treating them like human beings?

        You're not in the right mindset to respond to this guy's post. When he says that the children should be treated like human beings, he's really saying, ``what right do you have to oppress these people?'' While anyone sane knows that it's a parent's job to raise their children correctly, eric.t.f.bat doesn't see it so. In
      • So please enlighten us. How is limiting access to the internet to a reasonable amount of time (depending on the PARENT's standards/values/beliefs) not treating them like human beings?


        Not only that, but with more and more places charging for bandwidth overage, maybe he's trying to make damned sure that with a network of computers one kid doesn't get to download 10x the entire family's allotment of bandwidth all in one go.

        Cheers

      • So please enlighten us. How is limiting access to the internet to a reasonable amount of time (depending on the PARENT's standards/values/beliefs) not treating them like human beings?

        limiting the amount of time spent on the net is a perfectly reasonable parental thing to do, even used as a carrot. However, the grandparent mentioned non-technical alternatives. As in, instead of having a router automatically determine that they've used their X hours of net time for the day and shut them down, you sugges

    • there is nothing insightful about hijacking an ask slashdot because you dont agree or understand.
      this is becoming way too common.

  • KISS (Score:5, Funny)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <`vasqzr' `at' `netscape.net'> on Saturday December 11, 2004 @08:21PM (#11063212)
    Here's what my parents used for me, back in my BBS days:

    "Get off the computer. Now."

    If you were on the computer when you weren't supposed to, the phone cord from the computer to the wall would dissappear. Eventually they found the phone cord I bought at the hardware store, then the damn wall jack dissappeared.

  • The only thing that he has to hold over their head (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @08:26PM (#11063232) Homepage
    ...is being online.

    Wow. That's quite the predicament. The only thing he can do as reward/punishment is control their net access. The. Only. Thing.

    Makes one yearn for the good old days, when a parent was able to say "no" to borrowing the car, going on a date, purchasing the latest trendy thing, watching television, or assigning extra chores.
  • NoCatAuth [nocat.net] would be a good starting point. It'll at least provide you with a captive authentication system. In order to surf, they'd have to log in. Thus, you could control how and when they log in. Now the only thing you'd have to look into is limiting how long they stay authenticated. This may or may not already be in there.
  • Actually I haven't tried using it but you can use
    http://www.netams.com/ [netams.com]
  • It can't be bought in stores, it can only be evolved from within, but its the best thing for building character within oneself and one's children.
    • Ultimately, dealing with a recalcitrant individual comes down to brute force. As Mao said, power flows from the barrel of a gun. But since the guns are all held by the state, parents have no actual power to enforce rules upon their children. It doesn't matter how much 'backbone' you have if using it just gets you 5-8 years in the penitentiary. It's also unlikely to be helpful to your children to get yourself put away, lose your job, etc.

  • Suggestion (Score:4, Informative)

    by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @09:45PM (#11063539)
    Enough other posters have said that the principle behind this is a bad idea, so instead of reiterating that, I'm going to comment on the technical method of metering HTTP usage.

    First, if it's just time restrictions, you can probably use your router's features. My router's setup page lets me block access from an IP range to a port range between a time range; I've used this to block a spam daemon on my mom's computer from getting to port 25 [yes, this blocked normal e-mail], or to block myself from wasting time past 7PM.

    Barring that, I'd suggest writing your own server, or getting someone to do so for you. An HTTP server and a client are not hard to write; I wrote them in about a week of classtime each (got bored in my programming class). Or you can simply put a Perl script together that uses standard modules. Once you have a client and a server, it's a simple matter to tie them together, totaling the number of bytes transferred into a variable/disk file.

    On a completely unrelated and stupid-sounding idea: does Apache stop serving when it can't write to log files? If so, just make it log proxy requests to a floppy disk.

  • Why metering? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ropati ( 111673 )
    I too, use access to the internet as a carrot (or stick) over my kids head. It works well. They want to be on line 14 hrs a day, which I feel is unreasonable.

    However, metering them x hours per day of usage or x GBs of IO doesn't seem practical. It could lead to many arguments and hair splitting about how much they were really on.

    I mean, how do you measure it? Do I measure the time a socket is connected? If they open the NYtimes and walk away from their desk, they will eat up their meter. Do I measur
  • What if they are not just waisting time using IM, Chat, etc.? What if they are working on a project. When I was in high school I had many projects that required me to pull late nites on the computer using the internet for research. It is not fair to set a static limit for internet access. Just be a parent. How hard is it to say turn off the computer? If that is too hard just unplug it. Just because they don't have internet access doesn't mean they are going to abandon the computer, games are a great

    • When I was in high school I had many projects that required me to pull late nites on the computer using the internet for research. It is not fair to set a static limit for internet access.

      <tongue-in-cheek>
      Well if you wouldn't be on the PC so damn much you wouldn't have to pull late nites to get your projects done.
      </tongue-in-cheek>

      Seriously: the poster did not tell he wanted to set a "static limit" for internet access. He just want a means to be able to enforce a "contract" on internet tim

  • perhaps not perfect (Score:3, Informative)

    by kayen_telva ( 676872 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @10:39PM (#11063807)
    http://www.softforyou.com/ip-index.html
    http://www.akrontech.com/
  • If they can't handle the repsonsibility, they don't get the privilege. There are easy ways to see if they can handle the responsibility. Computer in a public place (family room); timers limiting time; chores and homework done first; Etc.
    • Good point.
      How is it that we manage to overlook the simplest solution? Passive parenting is a trend I do not agree with.
    • Kids need privacy as much as anyone else...if I knew my parents were able to read all of my conversations, i'd suddenly have to start changing my conversations, so my parents don't read stuff I don't want them to.

  • in that case... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 1eyedhive ( 664431 )
    Static time restrictions make sense. If they REALLY need access after hours for a school project: Demand documentation: i.e. a project outline from a teacher (including a due date, so extended hours will cease on that date, if they go overtime, tough). If sufficient documentation isn't available, tell them "tough luck, better off researching rather than IM'ing"
  • i think an apache+mod_proxy + some metering mod would be a simple but effective solution
  • What I think everyone needs is CBQ.

    So that you can say

    "Prioritise this IP(and/or port), if not then share bandwidth equally"

    Would a managed switch at least share bandwidth fairly?

    I have CBQ on my smoothwall box but I'm finding it baffling - it should work but it isn't and so forth.

    A default script that shares bandwidth equally would do everyone wonders.

    I can't believe people are still walking into `the other room` and saying "Can you stop that download please?"

    It should be built into every connecti

  • who's fault is that? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <slashdot@s[ ]afly.net ['upp' in gap]> on Sunday December 12, 2004 @12:23AM (#11064250)
    The only thing that he has to hold over their head is being online.

  • ... the /only/ thing? i can think of several:

    1) grounding
    2) no telephone
    3) no driving priveledges
    4) no allowance
    5) no working

    there's also the obvious "unplug them from the router". maybe a little /too/ obvious.
  • Kind of inelegant, but you could have a script that tweaks the permitted MAC address table dynamically ("The time is 11 o'clock, you are offline NOW!"). Of course, this could mean resetting the router/switch regularly, depending on the product he uses. Of course, this assumes the kids have a different computer(s) than the folks.

    Unplugging the WAN cord on the router works too but is more indiscriminate.
  • That is, parenting where you actually CHECK what the kids do, and keep track within your head how long they've been sitting on their boxen???
  • if i were them i would fire up ssh! go into a proxy and good to go! i would provide them with a proxy for favors (not sexually though i am a teen) if i were you i would setup a simple auth system. i can't remember the name but it is for internet caffees if i were u give them limited accounts. setup a script (in cygwin) like and it will do a test first to check :) for i in `ps aux|grep AIM`; do killall $i; done wee! what is their aim SN so i can tell them how to circuvent it?
  • It may not be free, but i think it has everything you need http://inetshaper.com/
  • They know how to take my router off the network and reboot the cable modem to clear its MAC limit if they ever needed to bypass any protection I've set up on the router.

    Dont put anything past teenagers. They're alot
    smarter than most people give them credit for.
    My oldest will have CCNA before he graduates HS.

  • Same need here, too... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nick_danger ( 150058 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @12:11PM (#11066497)
    Except it isn't teenage girls. It's my father in law.

    I work from home semi-regularly, and my broadband connection is my lifeblood at those times. For a variety of reasons, the in-laws visit fairly regularly. My father-in-law doesn't travel anywhere without his laptop, and since he's without broadband where he lives, he takes every opportunity to suck my connection dry by downloading every latest Linux ISO image he can find -- which really blows when I'm trying to get serious work done. I'd really love to be able to throttle his bandwidth down to sub dial-up speeds during my normal working hours.

    (Ok, before everyone starts pinging me for not to him about it: I DID. HE DIDN'T GET IT.)

    • 1) transparent HTTP proxying. e.g. Use squid as the web proxy and delay pools. squid -k reconfigure reconfigures squid.

      2) Use bandwidth control on your firewall (My internet gateway runs FreeBSD, IPFW, pipe and queue, and I give small outbound packets priority over outbound large ones, AND limit the outbound large packets to a certain bandwidth so that externals downloading stuff from my machine don't affect MY downloads and other network stuff much - this is because many of the important outbound packets

    • Except it isn't teenage girls. It's my father in law.

      Ditto. My Father-in-law keeps coming around to use our broadband, they live two blocks away and he has a key. He does at least have the courtesy to call first.

  • A recent slashdot article similar to this is avaliable at http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/24/16 13251&tid=215&tid=126&tid=4 [slashdot.org]

    Write two firewall configuration files. One allows access to the MACs of the teenagers ( the liberal file); the other blocks them (the restrictive file). Run 2 cron jobs to swap these (by renaming them so one is not regognised). At a certain time every day one cron swaps in the liberal script; later the other cron swaps in the restrictive one. You may also ha

  • I did something like this but it's based on time and not on traffic.

    Create a simple tcp server using sockets in python that let's you login and a client to go with it:

    a. Initially, the python server disables all the users in the squid acl.

    b. When you login using the client, the server authenticates you and checks in a text file to see whether you are there and how much time you have left, based on which it enables-disables your accesss by changing the squid ACL.

    c. It can run every few minut
  • Wow, i feel sorry for your bro-in-law's daughters. I mean if my parents ever did something like that (and thankfully they never would) i would deam all their computers un-userable and put the TV so the picture doesnt fit on the screen (i am the only person in the house to be able to fix it lol) so yeah i feel sorry for them. I have used computers all my life, and if i had this crappy limit that he wants to put on, i am sure i wouldnt be as good on computers as i am now, and know as much as i do! unlucky gir
  • As a father of 3 daughters, I have considered constructing a hot water metering system to keep natural gas bills in line. A microcontroller, keypad, and a solanoid valve in the hot water line in the shower. Each user gets say 120 minutes hot water each month. The wife and I shower together so that means we would have plenty of minutes.

  • I registered just to tell you that your brother-in-law has some serious parenting problems. I am also the laziest fucker alive.
  • This is not a perfect solution for your needs, but it's not too far off. squidguard [squidguard.org] offers time based allowances (only surf the web from 5pm to 7pm nightly). The way to implement it is to put squid with squidguard on the proxy/firewall. Force all traffic through the firewall, and block all ports traversin the firewall (force them through the proxy). Setup squid to force authentication, with the appropriate timings and allowances in squidguard for each account. I do something similar at home for my children,

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