Using a Proxy Server

[cloves2000]

I understand what a proxy server is, but what does it take to set one of them up? I really just want to have one so that I can have all web traffic going to it. I then want to be able to see what websites any computers are going to.

Another question, how do I make the computers go through the proxy and not allow the user to bypass it? A friend said to use ISA server but it looked really complicated and I would like to know what options are out there beside it.

[GIBBION]

ISA server sucks. It's more of microsoft trying to control everything. You should look at something like squid. It runs on a linux box and will store a cache of web content. AFAI, you need to use something like group policy to set the proxy address in the computers browsers. That way the users can't change it.

[GoldenRabbit]

There are appliances and software packages to create a proxy server. Check these out:

http://www.bluecoat.com/
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac49/.../ironport.html

For software appliance:

http://www.pfsense.org/
http://www.smoothwall.org/
http://www.ipcop.org/

[Webmaster]

ISA is terrible. If you are a 100% microsoft shop it MIGHT make sense, but it's expensive and overly complicated. Bluecoat is good one but also expensive. The ones Golden rabbit mentioned are great choices but they are each geared towards specific things.

Pfsense is more feature-rich than the others. It can do things like internal/external routing protocols.
Smoothwall and IPcop are similar but are more for SMB use.