IP Restriction Range Administration

Welcome to the help page for performing administrative updates on ip restrictions within this digital library.

This page explains the overall concept and some of the terms used.

General Concept

It may be desirable to restrict access to certain digital resources by using a range of IP addresses. This feature allows up to fifteen different ranges of IP addresses to be defined and blocked individually. For this application, an IP restriction range is defined as the collection of individual IP addresses or contiguous IP addresses which should be allowed access to the digital resource. Access from outside this IP range is denied unless the user has been granted access to the material through their login.

When a user performs a browse or search some results may be currently inaccessible from their IP address. In those cases, the restricted item is include in their list of results, but a note is included that access is restricted to that item. ( brief view | table view | thumnbail view ) If a user tries to view an item for which they are currently restricted, the restricted message appears in the place of any downloads or page images. The message displayed can be customized for each IP restriction range by the system administrator. ( view example )

This form allows a system administrator to manage the basic information about an IP restriction range and manage the list of IP addresses associated with the range.

Adding an entirely new restrictive range (or removing an existing range) can only be done directly in the database. If a new range must be added, please see your database administrator. A total of sixteen different ranges of IP addresses can be supported by this application.

For questions about the implementation of this feature, view the related technical help page.

Existing Ranges

On the main form the system administrator selects an IP restriction range to view or edit from the list of existing IP restriction ranges in this library. In the demonstration case below, three IP restriction ranges exist.

Restriction Range Details

Once an individual IP restriction range is selected in the first form, the details for that IP range are displayed and are available for editing by the system administrator.

Basic Information

• Title

  This is simply a label associated with the IP restrictive range and is available for management purposes only.

• Notes

  This is a place for system administrators to place any notes regarding this IP range and is available for management purposes only.

• Message

  This is the entire message that is displayed when a user tries to view an item which is restricted and for which they do not have access. ( view example )

IP Addresses

This section contains the collection of IP addresses or contiguous IP addresses which are included in this IP restrictive range.

• Actions / Clear

  This clears the information about a single IP address or contiguous IP addresses.

• Start IP

  This can either hold a single IP address, the beginning of a range, or an entire range of IP addresses in the form 128.227.*.110 by using an asterick in place of one level of the IP address. To indicate an entire range, the asterick can be placed at the second, third, or fourth level of the IP address.

• End IP

  If this address is actually a large contiguous block of IP addresses, this field holds the final IP address in the block of addresses.

• Label

  This is a small label field to place any note about this individual IP address for management purposes only.

Example

An example screen shot of the details for a single IP restrictive range appears below: