Marshal8e6 R3000 ISP Filtering Technology

Marshal8e6 R3000 Filtering System

The Marshal8e6 internet filtering system is an appliance-based solution that is ideal for both corporate networks and ISPs. It consists of a server using a hardened Unix-style operating system and uses pass-by technology to ensure that the filtering has no effect on user performance. It is highly scalable as many servers can be connected together to effectively filter very large networks. Key features of the product are as follows:

 

  • Pass-by filtering for no effect on performance and fail-safe installation
  • Appliance-based solution for easy installation, high reliability and performance
  • Scalable from small to very large networks
  • Configurable for multi-unit load-balanced and redundant configurations
  • Easy to manage through browser interface
  • Advanced filtering features such as Google and Yahoo Safesearch enforcement, proxy, gaming and video pattern detection, peer-to-peer and IM blocking

More information on the 8e6 and the R3000 is available here:


Download R3000 ISP Product Brochure

More Informational available at the 8e6 website

For Industry information and filtering technology developments a visit to the 8e6 Blog is well worth the time.

 

Pass-by Filtering Technology Pass-by filtering technology is the method used by some modern filters to ensure that traffic is monitored without interrupting its flow. A typical installation using the R3000 as an example is shown in the diagram below.

A switch or router device within the network carrying outgoing traffic from the customer to the Internet is set up with a mirrored port that is configured to copy this traffic. The R3000's monitoring port is connected to this port, so that it is able to monitor the outgoing traffic. This is how it filters web requests:

  • The customer sends out a request to access a web site. This mirrored web request is monitored by the R3000 and the requested web site is compared to the blacklist.
  • If a match is made to the blacklist for the chosen profile, then the R3000 sends out a block page to the customer and that terminates the web request.
  • The response from the web site is received by the customer but is dropped as the session has been closed by the block page.
  • If a match is not made to the blacklist for the chosen profile then the R3000 does nothing and the response from the site is displayed normally.

Pass-by filtering ensures that filtering can take place on modern high-speed networks without affecting the performance that customers demand.