Internet Access Control

The upcoming version of NetNAT products from Network Safety provide a level of Internet Access Control never before offered. Instead of depending on lists of good and bad sites (which are never up to date), you have complete supervisory control over when your users surf. This works for small, single LAN sites. For larger, multiple-LAN sites see our supervised access control.

How It Works

The NetNAT maintains lists of devices, organized by hardware address. Each device belongs either to the default group or to a device group that the system administrator creates. When a device attempts to access a resource outside of its own network (like out in the Internet), the NetNAT verifies that it has permission for that access. If so, the access is passed through. If not, the access is denied. Various levels of access rights may be established for groups, and those rights may be temporarily overridden by an administrator.

Event Logging

Changes in access rights are logged, whether they are the result of administrator action, or the result of a timer expiration. In addition, all Web accesses may be logged, if desired. This feature is very popular among school administrators (although the students aren't very crazy about it).

Setup Procedure

Here are the installation steps for NetNAT Access Control.

  1. Define groups of workstations and hosts. Examples for a school would include some computer labs, the library, the administration office, classrooms, and the principal's office. Use a WWW form to tell the NetNAT about the new group. It shows you the current groups and lets you create a new one.

  2. Define the level of access you want as a default. There is always a "Default Group" to include any device that you haven't placed in one of your defined groups. This includes new computers that appear without warning. Use your Web Browser to establish the normal Access Rights for the Default Group.

  3. From a device that you wish to place into a new group, retrieve the Device Setup Web Page, and select the group. If the device is incapable of retrieving a Web page, use the Remote Setup Page from another workstation. If you use the Remote Setup facility, you will need the hardware address of the device you are placing. The "Device Setup" page is the prefered mechanism as it reduces the chance for errors in inputting the hardware address.
You may check the status of any of your groups by selecting the Access Status Page with your Web Browser. You may click on groups to view the group members, click on a displayed access right for its definition, or scroll down to temporarily modify the access rights of a group.

Normal Control

In a normal day, you may wish to grant more rights to individual groups. Just retrieve the status page and pick the new level of access and the time period you want. When the timer expires, the group's rights return to their normal levels.