Virtual Appliance Marketplace

The Internet Content Filter uses proxy server technology to prevent families from accessing inappropriate web sites.

Features

Collegiate:
No

One-line Description:
The Internet Content Filter uses proxy server technology to prevent families from accessing inappropriate web sites.

Filename:
InternetFilter.zip

Size Compressed:
110 MB

Allocated Memory:
256

Username:
admin

Password:
password

VMware Tools Installed?:
Yes

Operating System:
TinySofa Linux server release 2.0

Torrent?:
No

Applications:
Lighttpd 1.4.11
PHP 5.1.3
Squid 2.5STABLE13
squidguard 1.2.0

Description:
1. The Internet Content Filter is a content filtering proxy server. The filter was built because there is a lack of free content filtering software available for parents, especially on the Windows platform. With the Internet Content filter parents can protect their families from visiting inappropriate web site and prevent known spyware sites from infecting their computer. The filter can also be used by small organizations and companies to protect their employees.
The appliance was built with the knowledge that most parents do not know much technically about computers and want something to work after they start it. The Internet Content Filter requires no initial configuration and will work as soon as it is started. Initially, it will block adult and spyware sites, although it is possible to configure it through a simple to use web interface to block additional web site categories.
Parents will want to download this so they have an easy way to protect their children from accessing inappropriate web sites. The appliance also includes a number of configurable options which parents will find attractive, including the ability to whitelist or blacklist specific sites, the ability to get emailed when a specific web site category is blocked and the online reports available detailing all web surfing activity.
2. The appliance was built with the TinySofa linux distribution. TinySofa was chosen because it is a very small distribution that still includes development tools. Initially, a development appliance was created in order to compile any programs that were needed. After the programs were compiled and verified to work, they were moved over to a production appliance. The production appliance had a number of things done to it in order to make it as small as possible.
When the production appliance was first installed, no packages were selected and any RPM installed on the system that was not required for the server to function was removed. In all, this made the base image, along with the compiled programs, come in at around 150 MB in size. To make it even smaller, every binary executable file on the system was stripped and UPX compressed which reduced the size to another 30 MB. Testing was done to ensure that this would have no impact on performance. None was seen.
The default kernel on the system included many modules that were not needed and were taking up wasted space. A new kernel was compiled and many of the unneeded modules were removed from the kernel, allowing it to be greatly reduced in size without any loss to functionality.
VMWare tools were also installed and it was noticed that they took up over 200 MB in space. However, it was found that most of the space was taken up by kernel modules that were never used. Once those were found and removed, the amount of disk space taken up by the VMWare tools was reduced to around 20 MB.
In choosing the applications for the appliance, I knew that a web server would be required. However, the popular server Apache was too big for what I wanted. Searching, I found that lighttpd was a small, fast web server which had PHP support. This allowed the creation of a powerful, but simple to use, web interface with little impact on the system.
In order to reduce the amount of memory taken up, many of the default services were turned off so they would not start on boot. This also increased the security of the system as the only programs listening on a network interface were now the web server and proxy server. This prevents any attempt to directly log in to the guest operating system without having it physically in front of you.
3. In order to start using the appliance, one needs only to start VMWare Player and point it to the files for the appliance. Once the appliance boots it will display instructions to the user on how to use it. Specifically, these instructions display the IP address of the appliance and direct the user to put the IP address into their web browser proxy settings. Once that is done, the user will begin using the Internet Content Filter - no other configuration is needed.
The start up screen of the filter also instructs the user on how to access the configuration interface. This is essentially done by going to the IP address of the appliance with a browser.
Detailed instructions, including screenshots, are located in the "Internet Content Filter.doc" document included with the appliance.
4. The following major components are used within the appliance:
- TinySofa Classic Server Linux version 2.0 - http://classic.tinysofa.org - Licensed under the GPL
- Lighttpd version 1.4.11 - http://www.lighttpd.net - Using the revised BSD license (http://www.lighttpd.net/download/COPYING)
- PHP 5.1.3 - http://www.php.net - Uses the PHP license (http://www.php.net/license/)
- Squid Proxy Server - http://www.squid-cache.org - 2.5STABLE13 - Uses the GPL license
- SquidGuard 1.2.0 - http://www.squidguard.org/ - Uses the GPL license (http://www.squidguard.org/copyright/http://www.squidguard.org/copyright/)
Any custom scripts written by myself, which include the web interface and some adminstrative scripts, are free and are unlicensed.

Technical Specifications

Operating System:

TinySofa Linux server release 2.0

VMware Tools installed: No

Size: 110MB

Allocated Memory (RAM): 256MB

Applications Installed:

Lighttpd 1.4.11PHP 5.1.3Squid 2.5STABLE13squidguard 1.2.0

Virtual Appliance Account Information