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DansGuardian

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Content-control software
DansGuardian
Original author(s)Daniel Barron
Developer(s)Aecio F. Neto
Stable release2.10.1.1 / June 2009; 15 years ago (2009-06)
Preview release2.12.0.7.1 / 28 June 2013; 11 years ago (2013-06-28)
Repository
Written inC++
Operating systemUnix-like (although E2Guardian can be installed and run natively on Windows 10 using the Windows Subsystem for Linux
Size1 MB
TypeContent-control software
LicenseGPLv2 or proprietary license
Websitedansguardian.org
As ofDecember 2016
An example of the default DansGuardian blocking message.

DansGuardian, written by SmoothWall Ltd and others, is content-control software: software designed to control which websites users can access. It also includes virus filtering and usage monitoring features. DansGuardian must be installed on a Unix or Linux computer, such as a server computer; its filtering extends to all computers in an organization, including Windows and Macintosh computers. DansGuardian is used by schools, businesses, value-added Internet service providers, and others.

As of now, DansGuardian is no longer maintained. Its successor is named "e2guardian".

Technical details

DansGuardian is distributed under the GPLv2 free software license, and written using the C++ programming language. It primarily runs in Linux and other Unixes. It is entirely command line and web-based, and meant to be used in conjunction with a web proxy such as Squid.

Graphical configuration tools

The Ubuntu Christian Edition Linux distribution includes a graphical user interface (GUI) tool for configuring DansGuardian. The tool does not work as well as the configuration tools included with SmoothWall Guardian, and other web filters.

Zentyal has the option to use Dansguardian as a proxy server with a web interface.

There is a graphical user interface available for Ubuntu, called WebContentControl, which was designed to install and configure DansGuardian, FireHOL and Tinyproxy easily. WebContentControl is no longer maintained.

Blocklist Sources

The url filtering capabilities of DansGuardian depend largely on the Blocklists, several options are available. Gratis lists can be found at Shallalist.de, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole and commercial lists could be found at Squidblacklist.org.

Legal details

In the United States, DansGuardian satisfies the requirements of Children's Internet Protection Act.

Proprietary versions

Two proprietary versions of DansGuardian exist: as part of SmoothWall Limited Firewalls and as stand-alone product Smoothwall SWG.

Forks

There exists a fork of Dansguardian Project called MinD. Its name is a recursive acronym for "MinD is not Dansguardian". The "Toy" version of MinD is a fork of DansGuardian version 2.10.1.1 with some improvements. MinD development began in July 2010, but stalled in December 2011.

A fork of Dansguardian with many improvements and bug fixes, e2Guardian is a web content filtering proxy that works in conjunction with another caching proxy such as Squid or Oops. This project was initiated by Frédéric Bourgeois and E2bn.

References

  1. Neto, Aecio F. "Re: Development of Dansguardian". DansGuardian support list (Mailing list). Archived from the original on July 30, 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2013. Development of DG is active. Fully active. Slow, but still active. Version is a community effort from Frederic to merge available patches into 2.12 trunk while the sf.net version is still under development. The same patches added here will be available in the next release too. Current task I am dealing with is to merge a 2011 patch for IPV6 support with new features added since that time without break things.
  2. Bourgeois, Frédéric (18 June 2013). "Faster Than Light". Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  3. Bourgeois, Frédéric. "Index of /dansguardian". Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  4. ""Who Uses DansGuardian?"". Archived from the original on 2009-03-04. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
  5. WebContentControl website
  6. "Shallalist website". Archived from the original on 2015-08-13. Retrieved 2014-04-13.
  7. Blacklists UT1, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole
  8. "Squidblacklist.org website". Archived from the original on 2018-12-22. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  9. Smoothwall Limited
  10. MinD Project
  11. "Mind Toy version / Just forked". mindwebfilter. Google Project Hosting. 5 July 2010. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  12. "Changes". mindwebfilter. Google Project Hosting. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  13. E2Guardian website
  14. Bourgeois, Frédéric (27 March 2014). "E2Guardian". Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  15. E2bn website
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