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How to Deploy Parental Control on Home Network

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In today's world, child protection guidelines that are as basic as "do not talk with strangers" are no longer applicable. In contrast, it has acquired numerous aspects, such as digital, psychological, and physical.

Although there are benefits to having internet-connected devices in your home, you must be aware of the risks these devices pose and take precautions to protect yourself and especially your children.

Parental controls may contribute to the safety of kids and teenagers online by restricting access to hazardous information, regulating the duration of online activity, and supervising the individuals with whom your child interacts.

The optimal level of parental control is contingent upon the specific needs of your family. A few families are capable of navigating with basic, free browser settings that eliminate undesired content. Certain families necessitate assistance in restricting their screen time. Some individuals are open to conducting spot inspections of their children's electronics.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to deploy parental control on your home network using Zenarmor easily.

How Zenarmor Helps Parental Control​

Zenarmor is a lightweight, appliance-free, all-in-one next-generation firewall that is simple to use. Zenarmor is compatible with prevalent open-source router and firewall systems, including FreeBSD, OPNsense, and pfSense software. It may be installed on popular Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and Debian. Every parent needs to deploy Zenarmor as an effective parental control solution in their house to protect their children from hazardous Internet material. It contains the following parental control functionalities:

  • Secure Search: Zenarmor facilitates the implementation of Safe Search Enforcement for every policy and network user. This function is optimal for home and educational networks, where Safe Search is deactivated by default for parents, instructors, and staff, but activated for students and children. The Zenarmor Safe Search option may be swiftly activated or deactivated.
  • Web Filtering: Zenarmor® provides AI-driven threat intelligence to safeguard your network against more than 300 million websites and domains. It is an exceptional standard feature included in all Zenarmor subscriptions, ranging from the Free Edition to the Business Edition, offering advanced security. You can effectively restrict your children from accessing harmful web categories, including Drugs, Adult content, Pornography, Violence, Alcohol, Gambling, Dating, Games, Weapons, Military, Tobacco, and Warez Sites.
  • Time-based policies: You possess the capability to create and assign schedules to your insurance to guarantee its active status inside a designated time range. A new schedule may be created for the policy, or the current schedule may be modified (by adding or removing elements). For example, you may implement a policy that allows your children to access online gaming sites just on weekends.

How to Configure Zenarmor for Parental Control​

In this tutorial, we will assume that you have a FreeBSD-based or Linux-based routing platform, such as OPNsense, pfSense software, or Debian, installed on your home network. Here are your parental control requirements:

  • You have two children: a son, James, and a daughter, Olivia. You need to enforce different internet regulations for each of them.
  • Your son, James, has a desktop PC, while your daughter, Olivia, uses a tablet to access the internet.
  • As parents, you have various devices, including mobile phones and laptops, for internet access.
  • You want to prevent your children from accessing malicious and inappropriate websites.
  • Your kids are allowed to use the internet for one hour each day from 19:00 to 20:00, with no time limitations on Sundays.
  • They are allowed to access educational websites, like Udemy and school websites, without any time restriction.
  • Unknown devices should not be allowed to access the internet.

After installing Zenarmor on your BSD-based or Linux-based gateway and completing the initial configuration, you may quickly deploy the parental control on your home network using Zenarmor Home edition. By following the next steps, you may easily safeguard your children on your network with Zenarmor.

  1. Identify Devices
  2. Add Safe Internet Policy for Kids
  3. Add Policy for Education
  4. Configure Default Policy
  5. Enable Policies
  6. Enable Scheduled Reporting

1. Identify Devices​

To acknowledge devices on your home network, you may follow the next steps.

  1. Navigate to the Devices menu on your Zenarmor UI. You should see a list of devices detected by Zenarmor.

  2. Click View button to see newly detected devices. Ensure that there is no pirate device.

    Figure 1. Devices page

  3. Click Select All button.

    Figure 2. Marking Device as Trusted

  4. Click on Mark as Trusted button. This will display a dialog box.

  5. Click Confirm to approve the new devices.

  6. You may update device names as you wish by clicking on them individually.

2. Add Safe Internet Policy for Kids​

In this section, we will create a policy to help your children access the Internet safely. You can safeguard your kids by establishing a policy in five main steps.

  1. Defining Policy Configuration
  2. Defining Security Rules
  3. Defining Web Controls
  4. Defining Application Controls
  5. Saving Policy

2.1. Defining Policy Configuration​

We will create a policy that targets children's devices and is active during specific time periods. If the children try to access the internet outside of their permitted time ranges, their requests will not be approved under this rule. Instead, they will fall under another policy, which restricts access to educational websites only. You may follow the next steps to define base policy configuration, which includes permitted devices and time schedules for your children.

  1. Navigate to the Policies page on Zenarmor UI.

  2. Click Create New Policy button at the top right of the page.

  3. Specify the policy name, such as My Kids and then click Create. This will automatically add a disabled policy.

  4. Click on the newly added policy to configure it.

  5. Select interfaces to protect, such as vtnet1, in the Configuration tab.

    Figure 3. Configuring Kids Policy

  6. Click + Device button in the Devices pane.

  7. Select your kid’s devices and click Add.

    Figure 4. Select Kids Device

  8. Click + Add New Schedule button in the Time Schedules pane.

  9. Specify a name, such as Safe Surfing Hour, and click Add.

  10. Set start and finish time ranges, such as 07:00 PM to 08:00 PM.

  11. Select days, for example from Monday to Saturday.

  12. Click + Add New Schedule button .

  13. Specify a name, such as Free Sunday, and click Add.

  14. Select the day, such as Sunday.

  15. You may leave time ranges as default to apply the policy the whole day.

    Figure 5. Time Schedules for Kids Policy

2.2. Defining Security Rules​

Zenarmor Home Edition, powered with AI-based cyber threat intelligence capability, provides you with near-real-time commercial-grade threat protection and tracking. To enable security rules for protecting your kids against cyber threats, such as malware, phishing, spyware, and botnets, you may follow the next steps.

  1. Navigate to the Security tab.

  2. Click the 3-dot menu with the ... icon at the top right corner of the Essential Security pane. This will open a drop-down menu displaying the available security profiles.

  3. Select the High Control profile to enable all security rules.

    Figure 6. Setting High Control for Essential Security

  4. Click the 3-dot menu with the ... icon at the top right corner of the Advanced Security pane.

  5. Select the High Control profile to enable all security rules.

    Figure 7. Setting High Control for Advanced Security

tip

Some security rules, like Newly Registered Sites, Firstly Seen Sites, or Parked Domains, may cause false positives. In such cases, you may add exclusions to allow these incorrectly blocked sites.

2.3. Defining Application Controls​

You may block inappropriate applications for your kids by following these steps.

  1. Navigate to the App Controls tab.

  2. You may block advertisements and ad tracker applications by clicking on toggle bars next to the Ad Tracker and Ads options.

  3. You may prefer to block Blogs option.

    Figure 8. Blocking Ads/Blogs/File transfer App Categories

  4. You may block File Transfer application category entirely or specific applications by selecting apps individually to prevent kids from downloading inappropriate files using torrents.

    Figure 9. Blocking Torrent Apps

  5. You may block Gaming application category entirely by clicking on the toggle bar. After that, you may also allow only specific online gaming apps by first clicking on Gaming category name and then clicking the apps that you want to allow, such as EA Games, Farmville, and FIFA by EA, individually.

    Figure 10. Allowing Games Individually

  6. You may block Instant Messaging application category entirely and then allow specific applications by selecting apps, like Whatsapp, individually to prevent kids from chatting with strangers.

    Figure 11. Blocking Instant Messaging except Whatsapp

  7. You may block Media Streaming application category entirely except for YouTube apps.

    Figure 12. Allow Youtube Apps

    tip

    You need to allow not only YouTube apps but also Quic UDP Connection to allow kids to watch YouTube videos.

    Figure 13. Allow Quic UDP Connection

  8. You may block Proxy application category to prevent your kids from bypassing your internet rules via a proxy service.

  9. You may block Remote Access application category to prevent your children from accessing a remote system to bypass your regulations.

    Figure 14. Blocked Apps Overview

  10. You may block Social Media application category entirely except for specific apps, like Facebook, X, and Instagram.

    Figure 15. Blocked Apps Overview-2

2.4. Defining Web Controls​

The Zenarmor® processes web requests and conducts real-time queries to our cyber threat intelligence servers to determine if they should be blocked or allowed depending on your policies. Zenarmor checks over 300 million websites across 120 web categories in just milliseconds. You may block inappropriate applications for your kids by following these steps.

  1. Navigate to the Web Controls tab.

  2. Switch on the Enforce Safe Search option on the Enhanced Safe Search Enforcement pane to enable a safer search experience, removing offensive or inappropriate content from search results.

    Figure 16. Enforcing Safe Search for Kids

  3. Click on the Category Based Controls pane. This will display the available web profiles and web categories.

  4. By choosing the web categories you want to block, you can define a custom web profile.

  5. You may block Adult, Advertisements, and Alcohol and Tobacco web categories that are inappropriate for kids.

  6. You may block Blogs and Chats web categories.

    Figure 17. Blocked Web Overview-1

  7. You may block Dating, DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, Forums, Gambling, Games, Hate/Violance/Illegal, and Illegal Drugs web categories to protect your kids.

    Figure 18. Blocked Web Overview-2

  8. You may wish to block Pornography, Proxy, Self Harm, and Social Networks web categories.

    Figure 19. Blocked Web Overview-3

  9. You may block Swimsuits and Underwear, Uncategorized, Warez, and Weapons and Military web categories that may be harmful for kids.

    Figure 20. Blocked Web Overview-4

2.5. Saving Policy​

To save the newly created policy for safeguarding your kids, you may click the Apply Changes button at the top right of the page.

3. Add Policy for Education​

We will configure another policy to allow kids to access only educational websites. This policy will allow them to use the Internet for educational purposes without any time restrictions. They can access their school or course websites whenever they want. You may add this policy by following the next steps.

  1. Navigate to the Policies page on Zenarmor UI.

  2. Click Create New Policy button at the top right of the page.

  3. Specify the policy name, such as Education and then click Create. This will automatically add a disabled policy at the top of the policies list.

  4. Click on the newly added policy to configure it.

  5. Select interfaces to protect, such as vtnet1, in the Configuration tab.

  6. Click + Device button in the Devices pane.

  7. Select your kid’s devices and click Add.

  8. You may leave other settings as default.

  9. Go to Security tab and enable High Control profile for both Essential Security and Advanced Security options.

    Figure 21. Security Rules for Education Policy

  10. Go to App Controls tab and block all application controls, except Online Education, Secure Web Browsing, and Web Browsing. You may also allow Software Updates which may be necessary for OS upgrades.

    Figure 22. App Rules for Education Policy

  11. Go to Web Controls tab and switch on the Enforce Safe Search option on the Enhanced Safe Search Enforcement pane to enable a safer search experience.

  12. Click on the Category Based Controls pane and block all web controls, except Education and Search Engines.

    Figure 23. Web Rules for Education Policy

  13. Go to Exclusions tab and you may need to add whitelists for the domain addresses or IP addresses that you want to be always accessible by your kids, such as udemy.com, duolingo.com, ncssm.edu and davidsonacademy.unr.edu.

    Figure 24. Adding Whitelist for Education Policy

  14. Click Apply Changes button to save the new policy.

  15. Rearrange your newly created policies by dragging the Education policy below the My Kids policy. Your list of policies should appear as shown below.

    Figure 25. Policies Order

4. Configure Default Policy​

Network packets that do not match the additional policies, such as My Kids and Education in this tutorial, match the Default policy. We will configure the Default policy to allow all trusted devices except those belonging to your children, such as your laptop, to access the internet and to block unknown devices.

You can configure the default policy for parent devices like you did for your kids in the first section. One of the differences is that there are no configurable base settings such as devices. Interfaces or time schedules on the default policy. But you can configure all other rules, like security rules, application controls, web controls, and exclusions. This will help protect your devices from cyber threats. When establishing rules, you can afford to be more lenient about which applications and web categories to block for yourself.

You may follow the next steps to configure the Default policy.

  1. Click on the Default policy on the Policies page to edit it.

    Figure 26. Block Untrusted Devices on Default

  2. Switch on the Block Untrusted Devices toggle bar on the policy configuration page. A notification message appears.

  3. Click Enable to block untrusted devices in your Default Policy.

    Figure 27. Approve to Block Untrusted Devices

  4. Go to Security tab and enable High Control profile for both Essential Security and Advanced Security options.

    Figure 28. Security Rules for Default Policy

  5. Go to App Controls tab and select application categories or individual applications to block depending on your needs.

    Figure 29. App Rules for Default Policy

  6. Go to Web Controls tab and block some web categories you want.

    Figure 30. Web Rules for Default Policy

  7. Click Apply Changes button to activate the updated default policy.

warning

To provide Internet access to your guests at home, mark their devices as Trusted. This will ensure that your Default policy allows them to surf the web.

5. Enable Policies​

You may now activate your policies by switching on the Status toggle bar next to the policy name on the Policies page. The policy list view should display all policies as enabled.

Figure 31. Enabled Policy List

6. Enable Scheduled Reporting​

Configuring a scheduled report can help you monitor your home network daily. To enable the scheduled reporting feature and receive details about home network traffic in predefined charts, follow these steps.

  1. Navigate to the Settings > Scheduled Reports on Zenarmor UI.

  2. Click the Disabled button in the Scheduled Reports pane to enable the feature.

    Figure 32. Enable Scheduled Reporting

  3. Set Mail Provider to Zenconsole.

  4. Add your email address by clicking on + Add Recipient button.

  5. Select Reporting Criteria, such as Volume.

  6. Specify a Schedule Time as you want, such as 08:00 AM.

  7. Specify a Schedule Period as you want, such as Everyday.

    Figure 33. Daily Scheduled Reports Configuration

  8. Click Charts & Reports button to customize your report.

  9. You may add Connections-Top Devices, Connections-Policies, and Connections-Table of Apps, etc.

  10. You may click Test Connection & Send Email button to test your configuration. You should receive and email similar to the one below.

Figure 34. Received Report Email

  1. Click Save if your test is successful.

Figure 35. Scheduled Report Sample

How to Monitor My Kids' Internet Traffic​

Zenarmor® provides comprehensive reporting that allows you to view overall network activity at a glance. If you wish to examine details, you can filter any chart item to focus on specific information. It features approximately 80 types of charts and 6 types of live session explorers. You can conveniently monitor your children's online activities in real-time as well as view historical data.

To monitor your kids' internet traffic, you may follow the next steps.

  1. Navigate to Live Sessions on your Zenarmor UI.

  2. Apply a filter for your kid's device, such as James Desktop PC, to view the connections belonging to his device.

  3. If he violates internet usage rules and attempts to access the forbidden websites, you should see this blocked traffic on Live Sessions. For example, the following Blocks Live Sessions show that James tried to watch YouTube videos, play Roblox, and chat using the Skype application. Fortunately, the Education policy blocked this traffic when James attempted to access these websites around 11:17 AM.

    Figure 36. Blocked Traffic Report

  4. When you apply a filter for your daughter's tablet, you may see that she respects your rules and accesses internet for educational purposes during the day.

    Figure 37. Permitted TLS Access Report

What is Parental Control?​

Parental controls are software applications that enable monitoring and restriction of children's internet activities and content access. These network security solutions enable parents to establish time restrictions for internet device use, filter and prohibit certain websites and apps, regulate screen time, and maintain a detailed track of their children's online activity. Parental control tools are designed to perform the following functions:

  • Restrict your kids from accessing certain websites, programs, or functionalities.
  • Regulate the apps your youngster may use for social interaction and establish restrictions on their communicative contacts.
  • Evaluate various forms of information, including social media platforms, explicit content, and anything that may promote self-harm, eating disorders, violence, substance abuse, gambling, racism, or terrorism.
  • Monitor your children's use of connected devices by receiving data on the websites and apps they access, including frequency and duration of use.
  • Restrict access by implementing and adhering to time constraints.

Are Parental Controls Helpful?​

Parental controls successfully protect children from harmful content by restricting access to inappropriate information and enforcing use limitations. Content filtering, screen time restrictions, and application use monitoring effectively regulate your child's online behavior. These technologies have significantly contributed to the creation of a safer online environment for children. It advocates for immediate measures to enhance communication around safe internet practices.

Nonetheless, consistent updates, suitable parental controls, and transparent communication between parents and children are essential for their efficacy. While beneficial, they are not infallible and should be included in a more holistic strategy that includes active parental involvement and education. Furthermore, it is essential to consistently oversee your child's online activities and developmental stages to adjust the app's settings to better accommodate their evolving needs. As individuals aged or their need for digital information evolved, it may be essential to adjust what had previously been effective.

What are the Advantages of Deploying Parental Control?​

The use of parental controls has several benefits, a few of which are enumerated below:

  • They let you eliminate inappropriate material.
  • They let you regulate your children's web searches.
  • They let you monitor your child's social media activity.
  • You may establish screen time restrictions with them.
  • They let you know where your child is browsing at all times.
Last updated on by Zenarmor