Website blocking via Screen Time

[Ergates-thi-Ant]

So I've been asked by my boss to limit a person's websites on their macbook pro to only specific websites, chosen and listed by us. I've done this via the options in Screen Time, and it's very successful. The user has only user privileges, and we set the allowed websites via an admin account.

The problem is that some URLs, such as for shared office documents, for example, won't open and I'm unable to tell which websites/IP addresses are being blocked in order to open those up. Is there any way to see what websites are being blocked and thus to enable them for these problematic applications? Even parsing the complex URL for an example document only shows some sites, and they are all allowed. Apologies for my ignorance, I'm more a PC guy than Mac.

 

[tekfranz]

Screen Time will give you a block page sometimes, allowing you to whitelist a URL. It should also pop a dialog if for example something like OneDrive or Microsoft Word needs to reach out to a website. Sometimes you need to sign out or restart for Screen Time to start displaying these warnings.

You could potentially run Wireshark for Mac with a filter on DNS queries and surf to the problem sites or open the apps.

If none of these work for you could try a free trial of Intego Content Barrier X9. Its a somewhat basic but pretty decent Content filter for MacOS.

 

[Ergates-thi-Ant]

Thanks! The DNS queries was the right answer. I opened the link on my PC and watched the queries run through my PiHole, then unblocked them.

Stringent security like this can be such a pain, especially when screentime doesn't supply unblock options for some of the domains queried.

 

[tekfranz]

Glad it worked.