Limiting web access rights

[NatThoelecke]

I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this, so moderators please relocate it, if needed.

I have been asked by my employers to setup web access rights on our computer systems so that users will only be able to access a limited number of sites otherwise they cannot get anywhere. For example, certain users can access webpages on codeguru.com and microsoft.com but if they try to access google.com or any other site a connection will not be made. I don't know how to do this. Does anyone know how I might do this? Is it even possible without creating a list of every website not allowed and adding it to the restricted sites list?

[Manish Malik]

I have been asked by my employers to setup web access rights on our computer systems so that users will only be able to access a limited number of sites otherwise they cannot get anywhere. For example, certain users can access webpages on codeguru.com and microsoft.com but if they try to access google.com or any other site a connection will not be made. I don't know how to do this. Does anyone know how I might do this? Is it even possible without creating a list of every website not allowed and adding it to the restricted sites list?

Some notes:


There are a number of applications available that let you do this. In a nutshell, you configure this application on your company's gateway to the Internet, and then these applications filter out URLs/IPs that are allowed, and disallow everything else (you can also set it up the other way round.) Some operating system components may be able to help you here - for example, Windows XP's Internet Communication Management (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/mangxpsp2/mngintro.mspx) component.
Typically, this won't involve any changes to the individual machines' configuration. The gateway machine / firewall will decide upon this.
To start with, identify your existing infrastructure. How is your internal network connected, and is there a single machine which routes connections to the external world via your ISP?
Is the filtering/blocking applicable to ALL the users, or do users with different levels of authority have different restrictions? Some filtering/management software do allow this kind of setup, some don't.