Group Policy to prevent accessing other sites

Question

We have a website, a library management system - http://mylibrary. Now, for a certain set of users alone accessing via Citrix, I need to provide access to this URL.

However, they should not be able to type in http://www.google.com and navigate to Google. If they type in any other URL other than http://mylibrary, it should display a Page Cannot be Displayed or you are not authorized to see this.

How do we do it using Group Policy?

Answer 1

You can achieve this by doing the following.

1. Open Registry
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft
3. If you do not find Internet Explorer, create a new key called Internet Explorer and within that create Toolbars and within that Restrictions
4. In Restrictions, createa new DWORD called NoAddressBar
5. Right Click on the NoAddressBar and choose Modify
6. Type 1 in the Value Data (It is preferred that you choose Decimal, although I have checked using HexaDecimal and it works perfectly fine)
7. Close Registry.

As with all Registry related changes, here is the standard disclaimer. Please modify the Registry at your own risk. If you goof it up, well, you are on your own. Ain't that the usual disclaimer. Come, let us modify it.

As with all Registry related changes, here is the standard disclaimer. Please modify the Registry at your own risk, because unless we break something, we will never learn anything new. If you goof it up, please post it at SuperUser and we will be happy to resolve it.

Answer 2

Here is another solution. Concept - Use of PAC file.

1. Open NotePad

2. Type the following

//List all IP's, HostNames that you want the user to have access to
var allowedList=new Array("http://mylibrary", "http://mypage");
var counter;
// ________________________________    Main    ________________________________
function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
    for (counter=0;counterallowedList.Length;counter++)
    {
         if (dnsDomainIs(host, allowedList(counter)))
             return "DIRECT";
         else 
        return "PROXY localhost:3421";
    }
}

1. Save the file as Restriction.pac (Not as Restriction.pac.txt)

2. Launch Internet Explorer > Tools > Options > Connections > LAN Settings > Choose Use Automatic Configuration Script and in the Address, type the location of where you have saved the PAC file

This will ensure that only those sites which are listed in the allowedList array will have access. All others will be restricted.