Different DNS based on user?

Question

I have OpenDNS with access controls set up for my laptop. I want to disable the filter for specific users, but there doesn't appear to be a simple way to do this.

My first thought was to enable the openDNS dns servers for one user and disable them for the others. Any thoughts on the best way to accomplish this?

Solution 1

DNS filtering FTL.

Another idea is Windows Live Family Safety. You can ban sites per user. And you get a web based management console. It also blocks downloads and plugins.

You can setup a black list or white list. But like many content blockers, you can fool it by surfing to sites that are specifically created to outwit theses programs.

Solution 2

OpenDNS is convenient for this purpose, but no DNS system is really designed for filtering. Determined, knowledgeable people can still get to "bad sites" if they really want to by entering the IP address. If you are talking about Windows, Windows doesn't natively support "per-user" network configurations. You likely could create some user-specific *.cmd files that use the netsh command to reconfigure the DNS hosts on the fly, though.

But, you might actually need run through a local network's DNS servers sometime to resolve hosts on their LAN, such as at a workplace. Using DNS for filtering is not my perferred solution.

I would suggest solving your problem by using a local HTTP proxy or other program designed for web filtering. If you are running Windows and want something "quick and easy" to protect children online, I've used K9 Web Protection for a while and was really happy with it.

Put a BIOS password on your laptop and disable CD/USB booting so they can't boot a live CD/USB stick and bypass all your protection, though.

Comments

[Lèse majesté]

I personally think it's a bad idea to block "social" sites at work since many of these sites do have a place in today's workplace, and it's also a band-aid-type solution to a discipline/work ethic problem. However, you could potentially just dual-boot such that one OS uses OpenDNS, and the other doesn't. Ubuntu Netbook Edition requires about 4GB of disk space, but there are probably other netbook distributions that are smaller.

[Swift]

I ended up using this.

[surfasb]

Kids huh? There is no telling what they are capable of. My 9 year old cousin created a three column book report complete with Smart Art, a table and a drop letter. Nine years old. And I got coworkers who still struggle with Facebook. . .

[Swift]

Interestingly enough this was to limit what the college level interns could do on the company netbook. The key was to combine both the Windows Live Family controls and the OpenDNS logging to make a feature rich solution.

[surfasb]

Force them to use their iPhones. Good idea.

[Swift]

Haha yeah, true enough. Even thinking for a minute that I could prevent them from visiting personal websites on company time would be far fetched.

[Naidim]

No, that won't work, as once the DNS settings are changed in the interface properties they will be changed system-wide, not just for the individual user.