Time blocks not affecting filtering level
Only the default filtering level is ever reported in the Genie app. Filtering specific to time blocks is never reported as being active, even when the time block spans from 12:00AM to 11:45PM. My Netgear router is the WNDR3700, and timezone on the router is set to the same timezone as my OpenDNS account.
Installed Netgear LPC Genie app on Mac, enabled LPC. Clicked on "Change custom settings", which redirected me to the LPC webpages on netgear.opendns.com. There I left the default setting as "Minimal", and created a time block from 12:00AM to 11:45PM with filtering level "High", and saved this. Then hit refresh in the Genie app, and it still shows "Minimal". On the website, if I change the default level to something else, like "Custom", and hit refresh in the Genie app, it shows "Custom", so at least it seems like the Genie and the router and the opendns service are communicating at some basic level.
What else should I check? I really need time blocking to work.
Thanks for any suggestions.
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If you set the time block to a certain level or to Custom, then this level is active during the time block. Are you saying that it doesn't work? How did you test it? Not sure if it is intended to show up or to be reported in Genie, but it is shown at https://netgear.opendns.com/. Genie seems to display the default settings level for "all times" only, not the active level for the current time block.
The related instructions: http://kb.netgear.de/app/answers/detail/a_id/25687/
There's another time scheduling feature on your Netgear router for keyword blocking which offers more options:
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20483/
But this is unrelated to the "LPC powered by OpenDNS" feature. It's a pure Netgear router function. -
Thanks rotbiltz. I tried more careful testing today. Set default level to none and then set a time block to a high, covering the time during my test. I was then glad to see that youtube.com was being blocked by opendns, contrary to my testing of 2 days ago.
I then tried additional modifications of the filtering level and/or times of the time block, and updating it each time on netgear.opendns.com -- this led to mixed results of youtube and/or other sites being blocked or not. Perhaps there is some DNS caching that allows a recently accessed site to continue to be accessed even after the filtering level is changed to block it? Or perhaps a newly created time block takes immediate effect while changes to an existing time block of filtering level or time take effect differently?
Regardless, contrary to my testing of 2 days ago (which perhaps ran afoul of caching issues or other or user error), time blocks do appear to work, albeit with some latency in effectiveness that I will try to understand better by trial and error. If you have any insight about this latency topic, please advise.
Thanks also for the 2nd & 3rd links in your post. Re: the 2nd, it is helpful to see the whole flow for bypass accounts, and I will try this. Re: the 3rd, I was already aware of the Netgear's router scheduling feature but the constraint on blocking only one contiguous time period is too limiting for my needs.
Thanks again for your help.
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"this led to mixed results of youtube and/or other sites being blocked or not. Perhaps there is some DNS caching that allows a recently accessed site to continue to be accessed even after the filtering level is changed to block it?"
Most likely this. You must flush your caches, both, local resolver cache and browser cache, so that your settings take effect immediately. Else the settings changes may appear delayed.
https://support.opendns.com/entries/26336865-Clearing-the-DNS-Cache-on-Computers-and-Web-Browsers
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