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Bhikkhu Subhuti
Asked: 2020-02-04 16:56:07 +0800 CST

How to block certain websites using Gufw?

  • 772

Is there are a simple way to not allow a couple of websites?

I tried the /etc/hosts and hosts.deny things and it did not work.

For the example for

  • youtube.com 172.217.194.190
  • google.com 172.217.194.100

I am looking at gufw, but I have no idea how it works. It does not let me add anything.

Is there a simple interface? Am I missing something? Is firewall protection a whole big philosophy and effort? Perhaps so, since people make it their single subject career. But surely there is or should be a simple way by GUI.

firewall

2 Answers

  1. I would suggest setting up a proxy, like Squid, if the hosts file is not working for you. It would be a more effective method. You could block IPs with UFW. I am not familiar with GUFW(prefer CLI), but it is just a GUI for UFW.

    sudo ufw deny from 172.217.194.190  to any

    The problem with that is that youtube and google have many IP addresses. Your DNS resolver may return a different IP every 10 minutes or so for load balancing. To see how many IP addresses youtube has run this command:

    whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS15169'

    A proxy would be a easier option than assinging a rule for every ip address. They could be blocked as an entire range, but you may block something else unintentionally. A proxy could be set up on your network. Configure the browsers to use the proxy and then blocking by Domain Name becomes a whole lot easier. But your more technical users will find a way to bypass.

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  2. You can easily block websites in /etc/hosts by adding entries:

    0.0.0.0 youtube.com
0.0.0.0 google.com
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