Recommendations for Web Monitoring Software

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We are running a network in a corporate environment, where all users have internet access enabled by default.

Previously we were running Small Business Server 2003, which came bundled with a version of ISA Server. We used ISA Server to generate records of the websites visited by employees and timings. We hardly ever used this information, as we don’t perceive that our workers generally abuse the internet access available to them. But it was useful information on a couple of occasions, and it seems good practise to us for an employer to have an idea of the websites their employees are visiting.

We also used ISA Server functionality to restrict access to certain sites by certain users, to specific hours in the day – eg we were able to encourage an employee who had been visiting e-bay regularly, by restricting his access to ebay to his lunch break!

We found both these functions very useful, and we wish to have them available to us going forward. Unfortunately, after a recent upgrade to SBS2008, ISA Server is no longer bundled, and hence that functionality has been lost.

Can anyone recommend a piece of software, suitable for deployment in an SBS2008 networked environment, which would give us equivalent functionality, without us having to go out and spend thousands on a full blown copy of ISA Server – which we have already bought once (as part of SBS2003) but which apparently we can no longer use!

Thank you.

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What kind of router/firewalls are you running? Sonicwall and Netscreen have the ability to generate log files of sites visited. If you are not afraid of Linux the following is another solution I have deployed on several networks.

http://www.untangle.com/

This runs on a dedicated computer with two nics. The base software is open source with additional modules that can be purchased.

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There are quite a lot of open source firewall solutions that will do what you need. They generally require an older PC with 2 network cards to provide the gateway to the internet.
m0n0wall.
Smoothwall.
Vyata
pfSense
etc.

cheers, Paul

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Thank you both for your replies. We have only just got around to researching this further and we are currently looking at Untangle.

However, we are facing one issue which was not the case when we used ISA Server as previously described, and I am hoping that someone might be able to suggest a way around this:-

When using ISA server, there is no need for individual users to login to some software, specifically to use the internet. ISA uses the normal network login to know who is using the internet, and to be able to then monitor / restrict their usage on an individual basis.

It is this specific functionality that we are trying to reproduce, but my IT Manager is saying that (he thinks) all these other applications will require users to login to get onto the network (as normal) and then do a second login when using the internet, to enable the (Untangle-type) monitoring software to do its stuff.

We would like to find a product that gives us the functionality we are looking for, without requiring that second login.

Any ideas would be gratefully received.

Thank you.

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http://forums.untangle.com/networking/16590-how-track-internet-usage-per-employee.html

Are you using Active Directory?

http://www.untangle.com/Directory-Connector

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Mercy

We are using Active Directory, and since your post, we have successfully achieved what we set out to do, using Untangle and the Directory Connector functionality.

Many thanks for your help with this.

Neil

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