Hello, I put this here because I wasn't sure if it was a good post for the networking hardware forum (Patrick: let me know what you think if you see this...)
I am wondering what my fellow networking experts have done to tame the Internet and network for their kids, or even just for themselves and maybe non-technical spouses. My kids are 8 & 10 and this is starting to become an issue. Right now I use pfsense and opendns along with some parental controls from Microsoft and Google and some DHCP reservations. I made my wife adopt 2FA and a password manager for everything like I use myself, which my kids will get at some point.
Now I am considering something more elaborate to get some more layers of defense in depth, and trying to find the right balance between complexity and usability. Here are some of the things I am considering:
- Using Sophos UTM or Untangle in addition to or instead of pfsense (all cases VMs in ESXi)
- Using Pi-Hole for centralized ad-blocking (also a VM)
- Using something like Circle with Disney on a separate VLAN for kids (with it's own Pi-Hole)
- This would go along with multiple SSIDs in my Ubiquiti WAPs
- While I am at it - creating separate networks for guests and IoT
- There might be a place in here for things like squid, not sure
- Passing this out to my mobile devices with a VPN, say I could get benefit from Pi-hole on phone...
I have set up isolated networks in an ESXi host and using things like passive bridge mode to chain multiple network appliances together, it is really pretty cool. But as I am going through my research on these as well as trying some of them, such as setting up pfsense for multiple LANs (which I have not played with before) I am asking myself how far to take this, because I don't have unlimited time to throw at this.
So wondering what others have done in these areas?
I know nothing can replace simple good parenting, but being an IT guy I also can't resist implementing some technology as well, I do have a reputation to uphold ;-)
-JCL
I am wondering what my fellow networking experts have done to tame the Internet and network for their kids, or even just for themselves and maybe non-technical spouses. My kids are 8 & 10 and this is starting to become an issue. Right now I use pfsense and opendns along with some parental controls from Microsoft and Google and some DHCP reservations. I made my wife adopt 2FA and a password manager for everything like I use myself, which my kids will get at some point.
Now I am considering something more elaborate to get some more layers of defense in depth, and trying to find the right balance between complexity and usability. Here are some of the things I am considering:
- Using Sophos UTM or Untangle in addition to or instead of pfsense (all cases VMs in ESXi)
- Using Pi-Hole for centralized ad-blocking (also a VM)
- Using something like Circle with Disney on a separate VLAN for kids (with it's own Pi-Hole)
- This would go along with multiple SSIDs in my Ubiquiti WAPs
- While I am at it - creating separate networks for guests and IoT
- There might be a place in here for things like squid, not sure
- Passing this out to my mobile devices with a VPN, say I could get benefit from Pi-hole on phone...
I have set up isolated networks in an ESXi host and using things like passive bridge mode to chain multiple network appliances together, it is really pretty cool. But as I am going through my research on these as well as trying some of them, such as setting up pfsense for multiple LANs (which I have not played with before) I am asking myself how far to take this, because I don't have unlimited time to throw at this.
So wondering what others have done in these areas?
I know nothing can replace simple good parenting, but being an IT guy I also can't resist implementing some technology as well, I do have a reputation to uphold ;-)
-JCL