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8e6 Technologies R3000

You can add URLs to existing lists or create custom categories. The R3000 also can block individual newsgroups, TCP ports such as FTP (21) and common instant messaging services. The R3000 can bar prohibited requests from Internet proxy servers and sites offering anonymous surfing and can block results pages for forbidden search terms as well.

The R3000 houses a Pentium 4 2-GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 120-GB Maxtor IDE hard drive. I configured the appliance using its Java GUI interface. The R3000 supplies a Java 1.3.1_02 plug-in for Internet Explorer, but does not support Netscape/Mozilla. The GUI is well-designed and contains context-sensitive help files. Unfortunately, the R3000 lacks a CLI (command-line interface) and SSH (Secure Shell) access to detailed system logs and configuration.

Block Tests

To see how well the R3000 blocked traffic under load at our Syracuse University Real-World Labs, I configured it to block HTTP get requests sent from a Spirent WebAvalanche to Apache servers on a Dell PowerEdge 1650 (Pentium III, 1,133-MHz, 1,024 MB of RAM) and a Sun Microsystems Sunfire 280R (Dual UltraSparc, 750 MHz, 2048-MB RAM).

With both the WebAvalanche and the PowerEdge attached to a Hewlett-Packard ProCurve 2520 switch, I connected the R3000's two network interfaces to 100-TX ports on the switch. One interface is for management; the other sniffs traffic mirrored to it from the switch's ports. I placed the PowerEdge and Sunfire addresses on a prohibited URL list and used the WebAvalanche to request their index pages.

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