Blocking users permanently & MAC filter/network authorization.

[root]

G'day all,

Our small business has been using the island for a little while & we're thinking it may be useful to have an option to permanently block web or network connectivity for devices/users instead of pausing them. Pausing will accomplish this function but seeing it every time we log in is perhaps less than ideal.

Also, for physical security's sake, we were thinking that it would be great if we could prevent a computer plugged into a switch/keystone in our building from communicating with any other computers inside the network or the internet until it is authorized to do so in island.

Thanks!

 

[Lew]

Hello, root!

Thank you for your suggestions.  On the blocking, "pause" does seem like the way to do that, but are you saying you just don't want to know about it in the app?  I suppose other options would be to block every category or block every country code for the device(s) in question.

As for the security suggestion, while Island can prevent a device from reaching the Internet, it really can't do anything about direct connectivity between network devices.  That is handled by the switches and other lower level equipment and doesn't even reach Island.  About the only thing Island could do is refuse to give a device an IP address via DHCP, but that's extremely weak since it's relatively trivial to circumvent.  There are enterprise-class switches that can block an unauthorized device, but that's sort of a different class of product.

These are good suggestions, though, and we'll keep them in mind.

Thanks,

lew

[Lee]

I'll expand on one thing Lew said regarding your second point. You can block "new" devices from accessing the Internet (or other VLANs) through the Island until you authorize them. On the Security tab, click on the "New devices" tile, then click the Pause button. Once that's done, new devices will not have Internet access until you identify them. Once you identify a device, it is no longer a "new" device, so the pause will no longer apply.

As Lew said, though, the Island can't block access to other devices on the same LAN because that traffic does not traverse the Island.