HELP! What do I need?

william_hipple · ‎03-05-2014

OK, I am kinda a tech geek, so I understand about enough to get me in real trouble.....

What I am trying to accomplish:

I travel alot for work, when I am home, I can monitor my 15yo sons internet easily, when I am gone, my wife can't.

I want to put him on OPENDNS - but only his computer (win 7 laptop and iPhone), but leave myself on regular craptastic DNS

I have a 5yo daughter who is still using my wife's iMac (own account) and i can restrict her a bit there, but eventually I'll need a second set of OPENDNS settings for her

I want to be able to securely reach my network from afar - I use DMZ now, but I am 99.99% sure it isn't real secure

I would like to be able to do all this and lock them down by MAC Address

Not sure if a VLAN will allow a seperate set of DNS address's or not

Right now, I use an Airport Extreme for a base station as well as wifi, but it has very limited capability, I would like to keep it for wifi access, but if I can't cest la vie

I was looking at either a SG200 device or a 300 series managed switch, but not sure if they will allow the seperate DNS

On my network I have roughly 15 devices, most are wireless and my house isn't wired for ethernet - which is why I would probably need to have stuff seperated by MAC address

I realize I am probably going 9 million percent overkill, but both of my kids know more about technology than my wife and I have to be able to assure her they aren't getting to where they shouldn't

Clear as mud????

Roger De Couto · ‎05-02-2014

Hi William, I'll admit, I had to read your question more than twice ;)

Have you considered installing a router that support content filtering? This way you should be able to centrally manage filters, there by blocking certain keywords.

Alternatively, you could add the OpenDNS 'DNS IP addresses' to your DHCP pool/scope on the router, and all your devices on the LAN will pick up the DNS IP. Exclude the ones you don't want restricted access on, by statically configuring DNS IP's.

For secure remote connectivity, the best option is to setup your router as a VPN server, and install a VPN client software on your laptop to connect to your router/LAN remotely.

Most, if not all, routers support mac address filtering.

You could create separate VLANs on separate subnets, and once again create a DHCP pool including OpenDNS IP's. But this will overly complicate your home network, unless you get kicks out of the challenge ;)

HTH!