Novell Netware 5 Firewall ?

[star3132]

Hello,
Our school system is trying to figure a way to be able to isolate a certain room to be able to turn on/off their internet access without affecting their network connection. My first thought was to make an access list for the port on our Cisco 2900 XL switch, but was informed by another person that this switch was only a 'Layer-2' and I needed a 'Layer-3' switch. Another person told me that it could be possible to group the student's computers in that room on our Novell Server and add firewall restrictions there. Any idea on what software/configurations/hardware we need to accomplish this? I'm probably not giving the entire information, but, if you can decipher what I mean, please help!

Thanks!

-Anthony

PS. If it helps, this is the current network configuration:

Computers in Room
|
|
Cisco 2900 XL Switch
|
| (Fiber)
|
Cisco 2900 XL Switch
|
|
Novell NetWare 5.x Server.

 

[Jontmke]

What kind of firewall product are you using now? The simplest solution would be to have those PC's assigned IP's from the dhcp server, then in the firewall tell it to block those IP's from getting access. Easy and does not involve Netware at all.

 

[star3132]

Thanks for your response

We currently use a product by Symatec but the name escapes me right now As for our actual server, it isn't firewalled to my knowledge but is connected to the main server running the Symatec firewall at our main office. We don't have specific access to that firewall, however, and were looking a solution to install on our actual server or network Thanks!

-Anthony

 

[Jontmke]

I don't quite understand where the internet connection is coming from here. It probably is coming from the main office over the fibre? And where is the DHCP server? Also at the main office?
If you absolutely cannot implement my previous idea than you can do something else. It is just that a smart kid will be able to undo it.

This is what you do. You go into the IE proxy settings and put in a bogus proxy IP address. Then you use Policy manager to block the user from changing (or seeing the page).

Then IE will try to use the nonexistent Proxy server, and fail. But, it is only a registry setting and a smart kid can figure it out and change it.

JON

 

[nexus96]

What kind of server-side OSes are you running now? If NetWare isn't what you normally use, don't start now. You might consider making that lab into a sub-domain (or it's own broadcast domain), then use a DHCP relay, and use the relay to filter out any IP info that will allow it to attach to the Internet.

I would think, though, that you would be able to accomplish these tasks via the Cisco switches. Sounds like you have the tools, just need a little research to have it up and running!

Good luck!