Setup bedtimes and time limits for devices on my network?

davidortenn79

So, i'm using my watchguard T20 a little different than most. I'm using it as my home router/firewall. I've searched for years for parental controls that actually work and gave up and now making this work.

So far, the parental controls are working great. I like having rules where I can allow only the traffic I authorize and I love being able to look at the traffic monitor and see a wireshark type output to figure out what's going on... can't do that with consumer home routers.

But, is there a way to setup a time limit or a bedtime for a device on my network?

davidortenn79

wait, i think i just thought of a way to do this. maybe i'll make a duplicate http and https policy and set the sources only to my kids' devices and then, from there, i can schedule it to stop traffic... Or does that just turn off the rule and allow everything? I have the deny any any at the bottom, but, it seems like it would hit the non-scheduled http and https rule first.

james.carson

Hi @davidortenn79

Setting up a policy like that would require multiple policies with schedules for each.

Please note that a time changeover to a new policy won't stop an existing connection -- so if there's a long-running connection (a phone call, a streaming video, or similar) they won't actually get denied until they start a new connection. Generally that'd be clicking a link, hitting a new section of a video, or similar.

For example, if you set the policies to change over at 10PM, just expect that it may take a few minutes for whatever the web browser is doing to make a new request and be denied. Don't expect that a streaming video will cut off at exactly 10PM.