Router blocking andriod wifi sign in?

[nealonious]

Hi –

I have two profiles set up. The default has parental controls enabled (only safe search enabled) and the DNS server is Google Public DNS, 8.8.8.8. And 8.8.4.4. No calendar is set up for this default.

The second profile uses the OpenDNS server 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 and the OpenDNS site has settings to block movies/tv/gaming – the blocking is done at OpenDNS rather than on the pcWRT router. The kids’ phones are linked to a calendar and set so they can access these sites for a couple of hours in the afternoons.

This setup seems to have problems when we wake up in the morning. The kids’ phones have an android notification to “Sign into Wi-Fi network” (they don’t usually need to do this overnight) and there is a pcWRT message that the site connectivitycheck.gstatic.com has been blocked. All sites seem to be blocked by pcWRT (not OpenDNS), not just the movies/tv/game sites. If I remove their phones from this profile for a few hours and put them back on later the profile seems to work then but the problem arises the next day. I have listed gstatic.com as an allowed site on the second profile but it doesn’t seem to matter.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

[support]

The phones are blocked by the Calendar. How many calendars were created? Did you list any sites in the calendars?

[nealonious]

There are no calendars under the default profile.

The other profile (Called “restricted”) has one calendar. I am interpreting the time blocks (e.g. 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm) to mean hours in which the OpenDNS restrictions are in effect. There are no sites listed on the calendar page although there is one site listed as allowed: gstatic.com.

For devices assigned to the “restricted” profile, what would happen to them outside the 6-9 time block assuming that is the only defined block? Would they have no internet access and be blocked or would they have access according to the default profile or something else?

There is a third profile for a different device that has no calendars and blocks tv, com, net urls. I haven’t checked but I believe it would block the assigned device from urls ending in .tv, .com, or .net around the clock.

Thanks again

[support]

Each device belongs to one profile. If a device is not specifically assigned to a profile, then it belongs to the Default profile.

Devices assigned to the “restricted” profile will have Internet access between 6:00pm and 9:00pm. They will not have access outside the window. Since these devices are assigned to the “restricted” profile, policies defined in other profiles will not have effect on them. When they have access, OpenDNS may allow or deny a web site depending on the settings defined there.

For the third profile, you are right. Internet access is allowed around the clock, except the sites listed in the block list, which are blocked around the clock.

Maybe you can let us know what you want to achieve, so that we make suggestions about how to achieve that.

[nealonious]

Hi – thanks for your help.

I was interested in setting up two conditions I can schedule for a phone. Under 1 condition the device can access the internet through OpenDNS with restrictions I established for OpenDNS, and under a second condition access the internet without the restrictions I set up using OpenDNS. This could be accomplished easily if I could switch the device between DNS servers (using Google DNS servers for the second condition).

The advantage of using OpenDNS is they already have a built way to block broad categories of content, e.g. gaming, tv, pornography, etc which is far easier than figuring out which individual sites to type into the pcwrt “Blocked URL” boxes.

In general, are there ways to assign two different conditions to a device where both conditions allow some type of access? It seems like with the way profiles are defined the options are condition 1: access with 1 set of restrictions specified in the profile, and condition 2: no access. Is there some way to allow the second condition some type of specified access?

Thanks for giving this some thought.

[support]

If I understand it correctly, you want to block some categories for the phone from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, but want to drop the restrictions outside the time range.

The only way to do that right now is to assign the phone to the restricted profile at 6:00pm, and delete it from the restricted profile at 9:00pm. We are thinking about some design changes that will make this possible without human intervention, but you have to do this manually right now.

If it is possible to whitelist the sites you want accessible outside the 6:00pm-9:00pm block, then you can set up two calendars to achieve that:

1. In the restricted profile, add all domains (that are blocked by OpenDNS) you want access to outside the 6:00pm-9:00pm time range to the allowed URL list.

2. Add a calendar for the time range 6:00pm-9:00pm, with no domains listed.

3. Add a second calendar with two time ranges: 12:00am-6:00pm and 9:00pm-12:00am, list all domains you whitelisted in step 1.

[Author]

Posts