[GRLUG] Time-Based Internet Blocking?

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Luke McReynolds
<luke.mcreynolds at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi GRLUG,
>
>  Longtime lurker here. I'm a student, and while I use my laptop to take
>  notes, do homework and brief cases, I find that I'm much more
>  productive when I don't read Slashdot or otherwise screw around on the
>  internet while I'm trying to study.
>
>  Unfortunately, I find myself much more efficient with my notetaking
>  and everything when I do use my laptop: I use basKet Notepads to
>  manage everything, and it works great. I can type much faster than I
>  can write in longhand, and being able to cut/copy/paste large sections
>  of text is invaluable for me. Furthermore, my professors often assign
>  8-10 page cases in PDF format: it's great to be able to search for
>  particular words or phrases in them, which means that printing them
>  out and taking them with me isn't very practical. I think that
>  continuing to use a computer for note-taking is too important for me
>  not to do.
>
>  My question is,
>
>  Do you guys know of an easily-configurable "Internet blocker" that I
>  could install on my linux notebook? If I could block myself from the
>  internet for a couple hours at a time, I think I could get a lot more
>  done.
>
>  I mostly study at school using the free wi-fi, so I'm not really
>  looking for a server-based option. (Blocking my MAC address or
>  internal LAN IP address from accessing port 80 on the router level,
>  for example.)
>
>  Do you guys have any suggestions that don't include prescriptions for
>  anti-ADD medication?

I don't know of any existing packages, but you should be able to use
cron and a couple iptables scripts (one to add rules blocking net
access, and one to reset to your normal firewall rules) to accomplish
what you're looking for.

I once set up a curfew on an Ubuntu box in a similar manner.


-- 
:wq