Ticket ID: 21770 Creation Date: 7/2/2015 12:38 PM Product: SiteKiosk Classic Windows Attachment: -
TicketType: Support Request Version: 8.8.1686 Language: English
Views: 28032 Last Modification Date: 7/30/2015 3:27 PM Platform:
Level: Closed

Support Request: Surfing Area URL blocking not sticking for *some* sites

Description

Hi
I am having partial success blocking URLs in the Surfing Area. For example https://.*.twitter.* successfully blocks Twitter yet http://www.llgc.org.uk.*/. does not block that site, nor can I block https;//www.flickr.com/photos/llgc nor https://www.youtube.com/user/llyfrgen - even though I have tried appending wildcards such as /* or .*/. as outlined in Help.

What am I doing wrong?

Configuration file and log attached in zipped folder
Regards
Phil

Answer: (3)
Re: Surfing Area URL blocking not sticking for *some* sites 7/2/2015 1:31 PM
Hello,

With adding these URLs at „ URLs / Paths“ it should work: 

*twitter.*
www.llgc.org.uk.*
www.flickr.com/photos/llg*
www.youtube.*/user/llyfrge*

As protocol you should always choose *

You may reset your current Surfing Area settings, add the URLs above as "Denied" and test again.


Generally you need to watch the extract URL that is called and also the protocol that is used.
E.g. http://www.llgc.org.uk.*/ redirects to https://www.llgc.org.uk/
You can block them separately or even use * for the protocol to block both.

When you test surfing area entries I would generally advice activating the option “Show output window (for testing)” at “-->Logfiles” to see what happens when SiteKiosk is running and check the exact URL that is called.


Also note that you shouldn’t add the URLs you want to block at “Address List” in the Surfing Area settings but to “URLs/Paths”.
The “Address List” feature is just for loading text files from other URLs/Path containing the URL list you want to block or allow.
Further information you will find here: http://www.provisio.com/helpconsole/SiteKiosk%20Help/en-US/default.htm?surfing_area.htm

Regards,
Michael Olbrich
Re: Surfing Area URL blocking not sticking for *some* sites 7/2/2015 2:30 PM
Good advice

I found that to block www.llgc.org.uk I had to use www.llgc.org.u* not www.llgc.org.uk.* I may be wrong but the black list matching appears more accurate when the last letter or few letters of the URL is replaced with a wildcard?

I have moved my allowed URLs from the "Address List" as suggested.

Thank you for the tip of using * for the protocol

Good service. Kind Regards

Phil
Re: Surfing Area URL blocking not sticking for *some* sites 7/2/2015 3:05 PM
Hello,

The block list is more accurate the more characters of the URL are matching the entry

www.llgc.org.uk.* will not block www.llgc.org.uk because there is no point behind uk

www.llgc.org.uk.* means block www.llgc.org.uk.something

Regards,
Michael Olbrich
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