HOWTO: Graphical IP Blocker

[uljanow]

This article describes how to block lists with a graphical front-end called IPblock. No knowledge of networking, firewalls or command-line configuration are needed. Due to the way IPblock works it doesn't change the behavior of existing firewalls which makes it compatible [1] with other firewall applications like ufw, shorewall or fireHOL. This howto is intended for Beginners and was tested on Ubuntu Feisty, Gutsy, Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty and Karmic (32-bit and 64-bit).

Installation
Add the iplist repository to your sources.list. Make sure to use the correct sources.list that corresponds to your current distribution:

• Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala":
  

  sudo wget http://iplist.sf.net/sources.list.d/karmic.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iplist.list

• Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope":
  

  sudo wget http://iplist.sf.net/sources.list.d/jaunty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iplist.list

• Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex":
  

  sudo wget http://iplist.sf.net/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iplist.list

• Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron":
  

  sudo wget http://iplist.sf.net/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iplist.list

The key of the signed packages can be imported like this:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C6E3D905C8BCD56BB02E6E0B39456311108B243F

There is also another way to import the key. You could save the pub key to a file and import it through System->Administration->Software Sources->Authentication->Import Key-file.

After an update of the Software sources iplist can be installed with any package manager. E.g.:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install iplist

Note: If sun-java* is installed by gdebi it requires to open the terminal part of gdebi and accept sun's license agreement.
Packages for Feisty and Gutsy can be found in the 0.19 release.

After the installation IPblock can be found in Applications -> Internet -> IPblock.



Lists

The default choice for lists is similar to PeerGuardian.

• level1.gz - Anti-P2P organizations and known government addresses
• ads-trackers-and-bad-pr0n.gz - Advertising and data tracker servers
• spyware.gz - Malicious spyware and adware servers
• edu.gz - Educational institutions and universities
• bogon.gz - Spoofed IP-addresses

These lists are maintained by www.bluetack.co.uk (list descriptions). Custom p2p or dat lists can easily be added. Note that lists can optionally be compressed with gzip.
The URL file /etc/ipblock.lists contains list descriptions.



Settings

All options can be configured in this and the network tab. Auto-updating lists is important and the default choice of 2 days is reasonable. Using out-of-date lists is not recommended.
To ignore outgoing network traffic like HTTP or EMAIL (pop3) use the ignored ports section. Note that http and dns (domain) is ignored by default. The connection-settings specify which type of connections should be filtered.



[1] NOTE: IPblock needs to be started after other firewall applications.

FAQ on iplist.sf.net

[maynoth]

awesome stuff thank you so much!!!!!

one less reason to use windows...

[maynoth]

just tried it out, can you have it set up to add url's from bluetack... instead of having to download the file manually?

[uljanow]

Originally Posted by maynoth just tried it out, can you have it set up to add url's from bluetack... instead of having to download the file manually?

/usr/share/doc/iplist/README.lists already contains many additional lists from bluetack. To use those just add the basename in the list section.
e.g.
README.lists contains "http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/spider.gz". So adding spider.gz in List tab -> Add and doing an update should work.

[maynoth]

oh wow... Just wow...

man you Absoflippinglutely rock!!!1


THANK YOU SO MUCH....

[pelle.k]

This is good news! I do run ipblock, but what i didn't know is that they nowadays include a GUI. I must say ipblock seems very promising.
I suggest you (uljanow) check out my moblock FAQ, and implement something like it... people are gonna want to know more.

Good luck!

[berttt]

Thanks for the info, has anyone had problems with this yet? Having problems getting it to work.

[maynoth]

worked great for me, the program launcher is in applications-->internet--->ipblock

[berttt]

I installed it using gdebi and everything went ok, i can update the lists but when i "enable" it locks up. It doesn't change from disabled and it blocks all connections to and from the internet. Not sure why

[antharr]

I installed Ipblock and the installation went fine, however it will not start when I click on it. Anyone have any idea why it would do this?