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I'm trying to use privoxy for parental control.

What I want is blocking sites (blacklisting) depending on what time it currently is. I.e. No youtube videos from 5:00 am to 8:00 am.

As far as I've seen, the privoxy configuration doesn't allow this kind of rules. I am willing to hack it with a cron-jobs. The question would then be: What is the recommended way to do this?

  • Is there a API?
  • Should I use curl to the rescue?
  • Hack the config-files and force-reload the service?

I'm sure I'm not the first one trying this, but I struggle finding anything useful.

MadMike
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1 Answers1

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The privoxy manpage says:

Note that unlike other daemons Privoxy does not need to be made aware of config file changes by SIGHUP -- it will detect them automatically.

That makes it easy; I would simply go for the cronjob way. Create /etc/privoxy-kids and /etc/privoxy-adults; symlink to /etc/privoxy according to your favorite schedule. Ensure your cronjob runs every minute, as a computer turned on at 5:30pm will obviously not run the 5:00pm job.

Caveat emptor: there are so many ways to circumvent a scheme like this (booting off a USB key, using a browser configured without proxy configuration, using http://youtu.be/ which you forgot to include in your blacklist, and so on...) — just ask any of your friends who has to work behind a restricted firewall at the office :)

Patrice Levesque
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