Parental controls enabled on the router for a specific computer but the rules do nothing

By jnelsoninjax
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Grand Master

jnelsoninjax

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My niece has a nasty habit of wanting to sleep all day and stay up all night, her dad decided to enable the parental controls on the router (Linksys EAB300) and restrict the internet to cut off at after a specified time. However this does not happen, neither does the block certain websites. Is this something related to the router itself? The connected PC is connected via Ethernet and shows up on the network map.

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

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  • Supervisor
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would not surprise me if it was a bug in the firmware.

 

you could try installing OpenWRT to see if that works better. shouldn't be an issue reverting back if you need either with linksys routers (Y)

 

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/firewall/fw3_configurations/fw3_parent_controls

Grand Master

Jim K Global Moderator

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  • Global Moderator
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After a quick Google search ... it seems that you need to disable IPV6 on the router.

 

Another option, depending on the device, why not enable those parental controls...or I don't know...grounding the kid.  :) 

Grand Master

jnelsoninjax

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  On 27/09/2019 at 13:16, Brandon H said:

would not surprise me if it was a bug in the firmware.

 

you could try installing OpenWRT to see if that works better. shouldn't be an issue reverting back if you need either with linksys routers (Y)

 

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/firewall/fw3_configurations/fw3_parent_controls

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I will mention this to him, see what he thinks. Thanks!

  On 27/09/2019 at 13:20, Jim K said:

After a quick Google search ... it seems that you need to disable IPV6 on the router.

 

Another option, depending on the device, why not enable those parental controls...or I don't know...grounding the kid.  :) 

Expand  

So is there any reason to enable/disable IPV6? Other device I suspect you mean the desktop? Yeah it Windows 10, and I will look into enabling the controls on the system. As for grounding the kid, trust me, if she were my child this would not be an issue at all, but her dad is lazy and doesn't want to be a parent.

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

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  On 27/09/2019 at 13:20, Jim K said:

After a quick Google search ... it seems that you need to disable IPV6 on the router.

 

Another option, depending on the device, why not enable those parental controls...or I don't know...grounding the kid.  :) 

Expand  

that is a bad limitation on the linksys firmware if the parental controls don't effect IPV6 traffic ....

another reason to go OpenWRT with the LuCi webUI; it should be able to apply the rules on all interfaces :)

 

  On 27/09/2019 at 14:57, jnelsoninjax said:

So is there any reason to enable/disable IPV6? Other device I suspect you mean the desktop? Yeah it Windows 10, and I will look into enabling the controls on the system. As for grounding the kid, trust me, if she were my child this would not be an issue at all, but her dad is lazy and doesn't want to be a parent.

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disabling IPV6 won't hurt anything in most cases but it honestly shouldn't be needed.

 

and yes he means the parental controls in the Windows Control Panel on the desktop itself; that I'd leave as a backup option as depending on how persistent the kid is that would be easier to circumvent than router level blocing.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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  On 27/09/2019 at 15:02, Brandon H said:

it honestly shouldn't be needed.

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It isn't needed, ipv6 has no actual need currently..  And yeah it can be a bit of a pain to curtail from a security point of view. Unless you have the skill set and tools to properly manage it.. The simple solution is to just disable it.. And should be done at the router and the desktop - since what happens if the user just smart enough to turn it back on via the desktop..

  • 3 weeks later...
Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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So lets get some specifics of what your trying to block exactly and how.. What specific site are you trying to block? 

 

Also problem with schedules other then just turning off wifi completely at a specific time is if the states are not flushed on the schedule.. If they went to say www.domain.com before the time to be off hit, then the state has been created already.  And if the control does not kill that state - then they would still be allowed.

 

Does the schedule prevent any new connections?

Grand Master

jnelsoninjax

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  On 18/10/2019 at 11:10, BudMan said:

So lets get some specifics of what your trying to block exactly and how.. What specific site are you trying to block? 

 

Also problem with schedules other then just turning off wifi completely at a specific time is if the states are not flushed on the schedule.. If they went to say www.domain.com before the time to be off hit, then the state has been created already.  And if the control does not kill that state - then they would still be allowed.

 

Does the schedule prevent any new connections?

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Not trying to block sites, trying to disable internet access at certain times.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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  On 27/09/2019 at 12:58, jnelsoninjax said:

neither does the block certain websites

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But you stated you tried both..

 

Ok so your just trying to do a schedule thing at say 9pm no internet for client xyz...   After the time of cut off, try going to something you are sure have not gone to before..  If new stuff is blocked - but old stuff still works its most likely just states are not being killed.. If you can go to stuff that your sure client has never gone to before, then it just not working at all.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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While it may prevent Internet access, I'm not sure that this is the way forward if the plan is to prevent her staying up all night. As an example, I have a couple of TB worth of music, tv, films and games. Even if someone cuts my Internet access I have days of material to work with.

 

If he wants his daughter to go to bed at a reasonable hour the best idea is to impose a restriction like, "no phones or laptops in the bedroom."

 

EDIT: Actually, I think we've had this discussion before. In which case that means the last attempt didn't work, I'm not sure implementing the "no internet access" will have an affect either. If the father is annoyed by the behaviour the only thing for him to do is step up and set some ground rules.

Grand Master

jnelsoninjax

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  On 18/10/2019 at 11:19, BudMan said:

But you stated you tried both..

 

Ok so your just trying to do a schedule thing at say 9pm no internet for client xyz...   After the time of cut off, try going to something you are sure have not gone to before..  If new stuff is blocked - but old stuff still works its most likely just states are not being killed.. If you can go to stuff that your sure client has never gone to before, then it just not working at all.

Expand  

I tried the website blocking when the time did not work. I will try again this evening when the schedule is set to run, I am assuming that just because time X is reached and the computer is still actively accessing the internet (Netflix, YouTube, etc) it will not just stop because the time is reached. Is this a correct assumption?

  On 18/10/2019 at 11:47, Nick H. said:

While it may prevent Internet access, I'm not sure that this is the way forward if the plan is to prevent her staying up all night. As an example, I have a couple of TB worth of music, tv, films and games. Even if someone cuts my Internet access I have days of material to work with.

 

If he wants his daughter to go to bed at a reasonable hour the best idea is to impose a restriction like, "no phones or laptops in the bedroom."

 

EDIT: Actually, I think we've had this discussion before. In which case that means the last attempt didn't work, I'm not sure implementing the "no internet access" will have an affect either. If the father is annoyed by the behaviour the only thing for him to do is step up and set some ground rules.

Expand  

You are correct, Nick, daddy needs to grow up and make his baby be more responsible, but I suspect that it will not happen, and at this point anything I try to say/do is pointless.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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  • MVC
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  On 18/10/2019 at 12:25, jnelsoninjax said:

the computer is still actively accessing the internet (Netflix, YouTube, etc) it will not just stop because the time is reached. Is this a correct assumption?

Expand  

Yeah the only way for active stuff to be killed is for that the router to kill all active states/sessions when the schedule kicks off - unlikely that some soho 20$ shitbox does that ;)

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

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yep, I blame the firmware which is why I recommended trying to install openWRT on it to see if that helps before jumping to a new device :)

 

it tends to be hit or miss with the advanced features on consumer routers with the OEM firmware

 

edit: I have a Linksys WRT1900AC router so I can tell you from experience some things just don't work properly in their default firmware. OpenWRT allows me to do SO MUCH more with it.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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  On 18/10/2019 at 13:24, Brandon H said:

OpenWRT allows me to do SO MUCH more with it.

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Yup 3rd party firmware is really the only way to get these things to do more than get you connected... I doubt they do any sort of testing of their so called "advanced" features ;)

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