Blocking Gmail Chat using Squid

ajayan · 12-10-2009, 02:58 AM

Hi All,
I am using Centos 5.2 and squid 2.6 on My Proxy Machine.In my office every one uses gmail for testing and other purposes.Now the problem is i want to block chat Facility in Gmail with out blocking Gmail.Is there any way to do this?
Advance Thanks,
Ajayan

linuxlover.chaitanya · 12-10-2009, 03:46 AM

block access to chatenabled.google.com or chatenabled.gmail.com. This should do it. But be aware that it will not block if clients are using secure channel i.e. https explicitly for browsing if your squid is transparent.

ajayan · 12-10-2009, 05:05 AM

Hi ,
First of all Thanks for Your Reply.I am using squid as transparent one .Shall i Use iptables to drop packets to destination chatenabled.gmail.com on port 443.

Regards,
Ajayan

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxlover.chaitanya

block access to chatenabled.google.com or chatenabled.gmail.com. This should do it. But be aware that it will not block if clients are using secure channel i.e. https explicitly for browsing if your squid is transparent.

linuxlover.chaitanya · 12-10-2009, 05:38 AM

Yeah you can do that but it can block gmail completely. Using iptables is not a very good solution and it can be very tiring to block ports for certain machines and allowing for some if you have got large number of clients.
I am using transparent squid and have been in this situation. Right now I have blocked all the https connections. And looking for using wpad and group policy for browser configuration and removing squid from transparent mode.

ajayan · 12-10-2009, 06:54 AM

Hi chaitanya,
Once again thanks for your reply,Now i blocked Gmail browser chat using iptables with out blocking Gmail.I just droped all request to
chatenabled.google.com on port 80 and 443.Now its working Fine.

iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d chatenabled.mail.google.com -m multiport --dports 80,443 -j DROP

Thanks for you comments
Regards & Thanks
Ajayan

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxlover.chaitanya

Yeah you can do that but it can block gmail completely. Using iptables is not a very good solution and it can be very tiring to block ports for certain machines and allowing for some if you have got large number of clients.
I am using transparent squid and have been in this situation. Right now I have blocked all the https connections. And looking for using wpad and group policy for browser configuration and removing squid from transparent mode.

linuxlover.chaitanya · 12-11-2009, 01:33 AM

Great that it works for you. I would suggest you edit your post and remove your email id from here. It could be a great source of emails for spam bots. Not a very good sight in your inbox and spambox.

ajayan · 12-12-2009, 02:45 AM

Hi chaitanya

Did you have any idea with yahoo domains,like chatenabled.mail.google.com .Now i want to block yahoo browser chat tooooo.

Thanks & Regards,
Ajayan

linuxlover.chaitanya · 12-13-2009, 11:02 PM

I have done that in past. I am out of office for couple of days for a holiday....Will check it out if I can and post it out here.

linuxlover.chaitanya · 12-13-2009, 11:09 PM

Okay. Have got some time in hand. You could try blocking access to webmessenger.yahoo.com to block the webmail messengers. These webmail messengers and im messengers from yahoo, google and skype to name a few are getting too out of hand for admins to restrict and control.