Supervised Internet Access Control

The 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.

How It Works

The NetNAT maintains a database of authorized, responsible users, like managers, teachers or administrators, who have authority to grant Internet access to others. When an authorized user wishes to grant Internet browsing capabilities to a group of workstations, the user retrieves the Supervisor Access Page, clicks the Group button, selects the group to enable, sets a timer for the access period and enters his or her user ID and password. The NetNAT validates the information and computes a unique 8-character string that is returned to the authorized user. The workstations then retrieve the access-start screen and enter a student or employee name and the 8-character string.

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 Access-Start Web Page, and select the group. Enter your name in the "Name" field and the 8-character session access key in the "key" field. Submit the form to gain the Internet access.
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.