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Forum Discussion
sapphirestorm
Jan 06, 2016Follower
Parental control not working
Hi I have been using OpenDNS only as Parental controls in Netgear Genie app have never worked. I would prefer to use Netgear genie so i have removed my network from the OpenDNS and I am trying to ge...
ahmedalalousi
Jan 04, 2017Initiate
OK .. so here's how I got this (very quirky) feature going. There maybe other ways, but believe me I must have tried most, if not all of them on my R7000. Below is what worked for me:
- Set your blocking to the desired level using the OpenDNS portal.
- VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT add a network on the portal. If you added a network, that being your static or dynamic IP address, then delete it, apply and wait at least 30 minutes for the changes to propagate before going further. Yes, 30 not 3 minutes as OpenDNS suggest. This OpenDNS "feature" this is not needed for this setup and will NOT work.
- VERY IMPORTANT: If your NetGear router is connecting to the Internet via an (x)DSL or cable router, ensure that this router (the (x)DSL router) is using the OpenDNS DNS servers and NOT your ISP-obtained routers. If you your (x)DSL or cable provider's DNS settings as they are, then the setup will not work - took me a whole night of debugging to figure this out.
- Enable Parental Controls on your NetGear router
- Install NetGear Genie on one or more machines and configure with the details of your OpenDNS account ...etc.
- And here is the {eureka}: this feature is so broken, that you cannot setup different levels of access for different devices as you think or as the documentation tells you to, which is being able to choose an access level, from none to highest. The ONLY way it worked for me is to setup restricted device(s) to use a router default access level, and to choose a none level for unrestricted device(s). In this fashion, if say you wanted to block your child/teenager from accessing "adult" sites, you'd setup the router at that level (highest, say), then configured his devices on the Genie network map to be at a level of router default. If then you and mum want to spend a romantic night in front of a good 18+ rated movie, then your machine(s) would be setup with an access level of none on the Genie network map.
And that, my good fellows, is that.
Talk about a load of useless; though in fairness, it did the trick for me - I wanted him to have fully restricted access and alas for all the other children's devices, whereas left all the other devices with no access controls. The stupid bit is when you have adult guests, for example.
I must say, very disappointing, and the answers here from the seemingly NetGear staff are equally useless IMHO. I had to solve this on my own, the hard way, because I simply needed to get it working, come what may.
Hope this helps other desperate parents.