Block internet access depending on MySQL results

[Penth]

Ok, this is what I'm hoping to accomplish.

I have ~16 computers on a network. I want ~5 of them to have unfiltered access all the time. The rest I'd like to have a list of ~10 sites that they can access any time and the rest would depend on the results of a query or a cookie.

Basically what I'm trying for is to make sure we are mostly caught up in our task list before people waste time on the internet.

 

[melchoir]

I'd forget about the mysql part and work towards buying a firewall. Cisco ASAs, Symantec Gateway Security Firewalls, Fortinet's Fortigate, and pretty much any others would be able to do what you want.

(These are not software based firewalls that you install on the users machines)

 

[yinan]

Can those devices filter access based on username? ISA server is a software firewall that can do this.

 

[TheKub]

Websense would work.

 

[Penth]

Originally posted by: melchoir
I'd forget about the mysql part and work towards buying a firewall. Cisco ASAs, Symantec Gateway Security Firewalls, Fortinet's Fortigate, and pretty much any others would be able to do what you want.

(These are not software based firewalls that you install on the users machines)

I'm not sure I get what you mean when you say forget about the mysql part. How else would the firewall determine the correct destination?

 

[Nothinman]

I'm not sure I get what you mean when you say forget about the mysql part. How else would the firewall determine the correct destination?

I think what he's saying is that doing what you want is going to be a lot more work than it's worth. I don't know of any proxies that authenticate against MySQL (you might be able to hack Apache to do it though) but even if you find one that does you'll need custom DB work to make it work because most things just want to check a username/password and maybe a time.

 

[Penth]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm not sure I get what you mean when you say forget about the mysql part. How else would the firewall determine the correct destination?

I think what he's saying is that doing what you want is going to be a lot more work than it's worth. I don't know of any proxies that authenticate against MySQL (you might be able to hack Apache to do it though) but even if you find one that does you'll need custom DB work to make it work because most things just want to check a username/password and maybe a time.

I can already do it by username/password, day/time, website etc. None of those solve my problem. I need it so that if there x amount of work to do or less, they can surf, if there is more they can't.

 

[Nothinman]

I can already do it by username/password, day/time, website etc. None of those solve my problem. I need it so that if there x amount of work to do or less, they can surf, if there is more they can't.

Which is almost impossible since there's no standard for determining how much work is left which is why I said you'd have to do some custom work on the DB side at the very least.

If you can already programmatically tell how much work a person has left via that database then you're part way there, but you still need to figure out how to get a proxy to use that and I don't think any exist yet.

 

[jlazzaro]

this is probably the poorest solution at addressing employee productivity EVER...

you may be able to script something up in a PAC File...like others have said, this is a one-off setup.

 

[Penth]

Originally posted by: jlazzaro
this is probably the poorest solution at addressing employee productivity EVER...

QFT. Family business.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Penth

Originally posted by: jlazzaro
this is probably the poorest solution at addressing employee productivity EVER...

QFT. Family business.

then tell them that the products available do NOT work this way, and that it would cost a small fortune to fix one to do it