netsweeper web filtering school ip level march 2016 · note* you should be aware that this method...

Netsweeper Web Filtering Guide | Date: March 2016

Netsweeper Web Filtering

School IP Level

March 2016


Daisy Updata Communications Limited |

Contents

1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 3

2 How to Manage the Filtering Policies: .................................................................... 4

3. Reporting: .................................................................................................... 12



1 Introduction

By default, each school is given their own personal 5 levels of filtering:

Level-1-@School

Level-2-@School

Level-3-@School

Level-4-@School

Level-5-@School

Each level, is by default, a clone of the pre existing filtering levels used by the ECC

network. However the schools can now modify these personal levels to suit their

needs.

It is up to the schools how many filtering levels they wish to implement within the

school. They may use a ‘one size fits all’ approach, or make it more granular. For

example, Level 1 = Primary, Level 2 = Middle, Level 3 = Secondary, Level 4= Staff

and Level 5= Admin Staff, or indeed use all 5 levels to meet their requirements. The

choice is up to the school how they wish to implement these policies, and tailor each

one to suit their needs.

The proxy settings that the school apply to their pc do not need to change, they are

still:

Cache.essex.sch.local port 8081







2 How to Manage the Filtering Policies:

Navigate to the Netsweeper Admin portal using the below URL: http://web-

admin.essex.sch.local

Login with the Username and credentials provided. (Both are case sensitive).

You are now presented with the main Netsweeper web-admin home page.

To view and modify your filtering policies, select ‘Policy Management’ on the top menu

bar, and then select ‘Policy Manager’ from the drop down list.

http://web-admin.essex.sch.local/

http://web-admin.essex.sch.local/



In the main screen, you will now see your 5 default filtering levels, select the filtering

level you wish to edit, by clicking the ‘default’ policy that corresponds to the level you

wish to edit, in this example Level 4.

You will then be presented with the following screen.

Click on the icon for URL/Keyword Local List:



You will then see the page below, this shows the list of Keywords and URL’s included

in this policy group.

It is possible from this page to search for a URL or Keyword to see if it has been

included on the allow/block list.

To change the between Keyword and URL, just select the appropriate option from the

Entry Types drop down menu:

Note* All categories and URL changes within this screen will only apply to the filtering

level first selected, in this case Level 4.



To allow/deny a URL, just click the new entry button

A new dialogue box will open.

You can choose to block or allow a single URL or you can block/allow a Keyword. To

block a keyword, click on the drop down box and choose your desired option.

Enter the keyword or URL you wish to block/unblock

Choose whether to allow or deny the URL, then click Save Entry



Amending a Keyword or URL:

If you have already added a URL to the block or allow list, and want to amend its state

you can do this searching for the URL or keyword in question, then just click the Edit

button

A new window will pop up, from there you can amend your entry. You can change

from Deny to Allow and vice versa

If you find that you have unblocked a URL, but still cannot access it because it is being

blocked by another category, eg Games, then you can re-categorise the URL to

resolve this issue

To do this, select Assign Category and then click the Edit button. This will then take

you to the category section where it can be amended



In this example, selecting General under Advanced will mean that mircosoft.com will

now be classified as a General website and will be allowed though if the normal

unblocking procedure did not work.

URL Tools:

There are two tools you can use here, one to see if a URL is assigned to a category,

and also one to check if a URL is being blocked by Netsweeper and if so, why it is

being blocked.

URL Lookup:

Select Tools from the top Menu bar, then select URL lookup

Enter the URL you want to check, and click Find



You can see from the results below that this URL (123movies.to) has not placed into a

Category, so if you wish to block this URL you can either assign it to a blocked

category, or you can block the URL in the normal way.

URL Trace Request:

Select Tools from the top Menu bar, then select URL Trace Request



You will then be presented with the following screen

Enter the URL you want to query, then click the Send Request button.

From the output below, you can see in this case that http://123movies.to is being

blocked because the URL was previously added to a deny list, so is being blocked by

the shared list.

http://123movies.to/



3. Reporting:

Note* You should be aware that this method of school based filtering will report on IP

address only, therefore if you are running an ISA server or some other proxy, then the

Netsweeper will see all you connections from that IP address, not individual host

machines. So if that is the case then the reporting will show a single IP address ie.

your ISA or proxy.

To access the reporting function, select the ‘Reports’ option from the Menu Bar and

then select the relevant option.



Demand and Scheduled reports are where you will find the reports that have been

manually created and run. There is also the option for Quick Reports, where a number

of pre-defined reports are available, based on the frequently requested types of

Internet usage statistics

To create your own report, click on the Report Wizard option

You will then see the following screen:



Make sure Demand Reports is checked, and then click Next.

The next screen is where you enter the parameters you want to base the report on. If

you wish to run a report based on certain IP addresses, just enter the IP address or

Range into the Client IP address field.

You can also run a report on individual policy groups by selecting the appropriate

option from the Policy Group drop down box. When finished, click Next

The next step is to add details to the report, so click on Add Detail Group



On the next screen you can choose which fields you would like included in the report.

The bottom 4 are not really needed.

Once you have chosen what detail you would like the report to show, click next

You are then presented with confirmation of what fields have been chosen. If you are

happy with your selections click Next



You will then be asked for final confirmation that you are happy with your selections,

to confirm you are happy with your report criteria click Finish

This page is again for information purposes, you can just click Next on this page



The next page is where you can choose to email yourself a copy of the report, email yourself a

link to the report or send it in PDF format. Leave the email address field blank if you just want

to access the report via Netsweeper. When finished, click Next



The final screen is where you give the report a name, enter the name of your report in the field

and click Finish

You should then get confirmation that the report has been added and will then start to run.

netsweeper web filtering school ip level march 2016 · note* you should be aware that this method...

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