Blocking the Internet with NETGEAR Routers

After I set up my new KWGR614 open source router, I thought it was time to add in our "No Internet after 9:00 PM" rule for one of the kids. I wanted to see if it was as easy to set up as my old router, and how the KWGR614 would handle it.

After looking around a bit, I decided the best way to do this was to block port 80 to the kids' machine after 9:00PM. To surf the web, you need port 80 open on most machines and setups. If that port is closed, you cannot get to the internet.

To do this, I went into the router setup and clicked on the 'Block services" tab, then "Add." I then typed in the address of the kids machine, and used the drop down box to select "web server (T80)" It looked like this.

I clicked on "Accept" and was brought back to the "Blocked Services" screen. Once there, I selected "Per Schedule" and then "Apply". Now, it was saved in the router.

Next. I had to set up the schedule on which I would allow the machine to surf the internet. I clicked on the "Schedule" tab and entered the days and times that I wanted the kids machine to NOT have internet access. When complete, it looked like this.

You can see that every school night the blocking starts at 21:00 hours, or 9:00PM. Yes, you have to use military time on this. I stopped it at 23:59 hours because I did not want to worry about getting into multiple days. However, I'm not worried if it comes back on at midnight.

I clicked on "Apply" and was good to go.

Now, if the kids try to sneak a little internet time after 9:00 PM, they won't be able to. This is a cool little setup and if I wanted, I could block several machines or devices this way. However, if I wanted to have one machine blocked at 9:00PM, and another at 10:00PM, I wouldn't be able to. I'm looking forward to trying some other firmwares or writing something myself to do this.

This is one of the great pleasures of having an open source router: I won't have to wait for something to be released to accomplish what I want.

I can just do it myself!