Setting Up a Filtering Proxy Server

Setting up a proxy server is actually a very simple process. The more involved part is maintaining the blocked hosts list.

1.	Launch /Applications/Server/Server Admin and connect to your server.
2.	Select the Web service in the left frame, open the Settings tab using the button at the bottom of the main window, and click the Proxy tab at the top of the frame.
3.	Select the Enable Proxy and Control Access To Proxy checkboxes.
4.	Click the "Add a new host to the list" (+) button to type individual hosts into the "Blocked hosts" list box. You can also drag a comma-delimited (csv) or tab-delimited (tsv) text file of addresses into the "Blocked hosts" list box.
5.	Click the Save button.

Those clients you configure to use this proxy server will now be filtered through it, allowing you to restrict access to specific Web hosts. It's also strongly recommended that you restrict your proxy server usage to just your domain, as it is a security risk. When the cache space fills up, the oldest information will be dumped. You may need to adjust this setting, but if your primary reason for using proxy caching is to filter incoming traffic, you can probably leave the size quite small.

Note

There are both commercial and free block lists available; they are what make proxy filtering worthwhile. The results, though, will only be as good as the block lists, and won't be perfect, either.