Configuration
To configure the Internet Filter, you must run the If2k Settings application.Starting the Settings Application
Run If2k Settings
Double click on the "If2k Settings" application to configure the filter. You will be presented with the following window which is mostly disabled until you login to the filter:
Logging In
Before you are allowed to make any changes to the filter settings, you must 'login' to the filter by entering the filter password and pressing the 'Login' button. When you first install the filter, the password is initially set to 'password'. Press the 'Login' Button and the controls in the window will become enabled like so:
Overview of the controls of the main window:
The "Apply" button sends all your settings to the filter.
The "Change Password" button allows you to change the filter password.
The "Enable Filtering" switch allows you to enable or disable the filter completely.
The "Allow Override" switch allows the user to manually override the filter.
The "Customize" button allows you to customize the filter blocking behaviour and block notification style.
The "Remote Settings" button allows you to set the filter to read the filter settings and url database from an external website
The "License" button allows you to view and load an Internet Filter license when you purchase the filter.
The "Bad URLs", "Good URLs", and "Phrases" tab allows you to view and edit your customized URL lists. These lists do not include the built in list of 450,000 bad urls.
Setting the Filter Password
It is highly recommended that you create a new password for the filter system when you first install the filter. To do this, login to the filter and press the "Change Password" button. The following window will appear:
Enter in your new password and click on the "Apply" button. From now on you will need to enter this password to login the filter. Do not lose this password - If you do, you will need administration privileges to un-install the filter, reboot, and re-install the filter and all your settings will be lost.
Block Page Configuration
When a website is blocked, the typical block page looks like this:
In the "Customization Window" you may customize most aspects of this internally generated page - The title, image, link, and text. Or, you may create your own web page on your own website and tell the filter to use it instead.
Changing blocking settings and block page style
When you click on the "Customize" button, the following window will appear:
Overview of the controls of the "Customization Settings" window:
The "Apply" button accepts your settings. You will need to press the "Apply" button in the main window to tell the filter about your new settings.
The "Cancel" button closes the window without accepting your settings.
The "Block Bad Sites" switch when checked causes the filter to block any website that is listed in the bad URLs list.
The "Block Unknown" switch when checked causes the filter to block all websites that are not in your good URLs list.
The "Censor bad URLs in content" switch when checked causes the filter to censor any links to bad URLs in an unknown website.
The "Censor bad phrases in content" switch when checked causes the filter to censor any phrases that match any phrases in the "Phrases" list.
The "Content match count before blocking" field allows you to specify how many censored matches are allowed in an unknown website before the filter blocks the entire page.
The "Block Page Title" field allows you to set the HTML title of the block page.
The "Block Page Image" field allows you to set the image that is displayed in the block page. It defaults to "blocked1.jpg" which is stored internal to the filter. You may set this to any external URL of an image, for example: "http://www.yourwebsite/yourblockedimage.jpg"
The "Block Page Image Link" field allows you to set the HTML link that the block page image links to. It defaults to "http://www.internetfilter.com/".
The "Block Page Text" field allows you to set the text that is displayed below the "Block Page Image".
The "Block Page URL" field allows you to use an entirely different external block page. When this is set to any url other than "block.html", the filter will redirect bad sites to this url instead of displaying the internally generated block page.
The "Redirect Images on bad sites" when checked tells the filter to replace any JPG,GIF, and PNG images that are located on known bad websites to the URLs specified via the "Redirect JPG images to", "Redirect GIF images to", and "Redirect PNG images to" fields. You may enter any full urls of external images in these fields.
Loading a License File
Click on the "License" button in the main window. The following window will appear:
This window allows you to load a new license file. You may not edit any of these fields.
When you purchase the filter, you will be sent a text file containing the license information. Save this text file to your disk and click the "Load" button in this window. Select the license file and press the "Ok" button. You should see your specific license information in the window. Press the "Apply" button and the license information will be stored. Press the "Apply" button in the main window to send this information to the filter.
Remote Settings
When you click on the "Remote Settings" button in the main window, the following window will appear:
Overview of the controls of the "Remote Settings" window:
The "Apply" button accepts your settings. You will need to press the "Apply" button in the main window to tell the filter about your new settings.
The "Cancel" button closes the window without accepting your settings.
The "HTTP Proxy to use" field allows you to set the filter to perform all web accesses via an external proxy. You will need to set this field if your network setup requires access via an external HTTP proxy.
The "Remote Database URL" field tells the filter to read the good URL, bad URL and phrase database from an external website URL.
The "Remote Settings URL" field tells the filter to read the global filter settings from the specified text file external website URL.
The "Update Rate In Minutes" field, if non-zero, tells the filter to load the external settings and database at the specified rate.
Using Remote URL Databases
If you want the filter to load the custom lists from an external website, you must manually create 3 text files:
- 01badurl.txt - Your list of bad urls
- 01goodurl.txt - Your list of good urls
- 01badphr.txt - Your list of bad phrases
Upload these files to a directory in your intranet or internet website, and enter in the full URL of this directory in the "Remote Database URL" field in the "Remote Settings" window and specify a non-zero number of minutes for the filter to reload them in the "Update Rate In Minutes" field.
The filter will access your website automatically to see if the files have been modified. If they have been modified, the filter will download your database files and install them on the client computer.
Using Remote Settings
The Remote Settings feature is for advanced users of the filter. The URL specified in the "Remote Settings URL" field of the "Remote Settings" window must be a text file which contains the filter settings. To create this file, contact <jeffk@internetfilter.com> for details.
