been running DD-WRT firmware on my WRT54GS Router for some time now and liked it because you could block certain website access and now all of a sudden they are getting through, reset the router redid all the access restrictions but they are all still getting through, what did I screw up this time or how?

Have you tested whether the problem occurs from different PC's connected to the router?

haven't tried that yet, wouldn't think it would have mattered, I'll give that a whirl

My thinking is... if it's not happening from other PC's, then the PC from which it is happening may be infested/infected w/ something which is changing URLs before they get to the router. If the router doesn't receive the actual URL you typed in, it obviously can't block it.

well, still isn't blocking sites on 4 different computers, seems as if when I go into the router settings they are not being saved or something, tried the whole url and the keyword ones and neither are blocking

I just tested this feature out for the first time based on your issue. It took me a little bit to get it working, so I'll go through the sequence of steps of what I had to do to make it work. Before I do that though, given your post above, if the router isn't saving settings, try doing the following first:

1) Go to the "Administration" Tab

2) Click the "Factory Defaults" sub-tab

3) Select "Yes" to restore Factory Defaults, then click "Save Settings"

That will DD-WRT reset your router. Now re-configure your router as you would like, but don't bother w/ the ACCESS RESTRICTIONS yet. After you've reconfigured your router, reboot it and verify that the configured settings have saved. If they have, then proceed to the ACCESS RESTRICTIONS configuration (below). If they have not properly saved, then it sounds like your router may be going bad. You may want to try re-loading the DD-WRT firmware onto the router to see if it'll cure the "settings not saving" issue.

Configuring ACCESS RESTRICTIONS:

1) Go to the "Access Restrictions" tab

2) Type in a "Policy Name" (i.e. "Blocked Sites")

3) Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Save Settings" button

4) Once the page refreshes, ensure that the Policy Drop Down List is on the entry for the policy you just created. In step 2, if you called the policy "Blocked Sites," it should be on "1 (Blocked Sites)."

5) Click the "Edit list of PCs" button

6) Enter the MAC ADDRESSES -or- IP ADDRESS(ES) -or- IP ADDRESS RANGES of the PC's you want the ACCESS RESTRICTIONS to apply to. Then click the "Save Settings" button in the IP/MAC Address configuration box.

Note: I only tested it w/ entering a PC's IP ADDRESS, not a PC's MAC ADDRESS and IP ADDRESS as I've got static DHCP IP ADDRESS assignments in my router based on MAC ADDRESS.

7) Back in the main DD-WRT window, configure the DAYS and TIMES you want the rule to be active (presumably "Everyday" and "24 hours").

8) Scroll down to the "Website Blocking by URL Address" section and type in the web-site(s) you want to block. It worked for me when I used a URL format of the web-site minus the leading "HTTP://" tag (i.e. to block Yahoo, it worked when I entered "www.yahoo.com" but not "http://www.yahoo.com")

9) At the very bottom of the page, click the "Save Settings" button

That should do it. If it works, reboot the router to see if the settings have saved. If they have, that should be it.

Diggler

may be slightly off topic....

be careful of the latest Release Candidate for DD-WRT...DD-WRT v24 RC6.X

i've been seeing some chatter about bricking routers with that release

thanks Digs, and thanks Cron for the heads up, anybody know the latest version that still works good? was thinking of reflashing it with the latest but not after what was just said, Last thing I need is a brick right now(unless it's full of beer)

v24 RC5 seemed stable on my WRT54G v2.

I would still look through the dd-wrt forums and skim through the RC5 experiences for your specific model.

I'm still running v23 SP2 RELEASE on mine. Works fine for me.

running v23 sp2 on the exact version of Cron's router, wondering if I should reflash the same version or upgrade it to the v24 rc5

If you're going to re-flash, I suggest re-flashing with what you've currently got. After all, that firmware used to work fine. When you re-flash, choose the option to "reset to default settings" after flashing.

If that doesn't do the trick, then proceed w/ flashing to a different version.

Of course no need to bother flashing if you can get my previously listed instructions to work w/o flashing.