Table of Contents

KeexyBox - Manage the Blacklist

The Blacklist is KeexyBox's internal database containing the domains to block. All domains or websites added in the blacklist have to be categorized. These categories are used to be assigned to connection profiles in order to block domains.

Go to the Blacklist manager:

  1. Use your browser and connect to the KeexyBox Management Web interface.
  2. On left menu, go to Connection settings → Blacklist.
  3. You will be redirect to the page Blacklist categories.

The page will show you the list of available Blacklist categories. By default the Blacklist is empty, KeexyBox is not provided with any list of domains. So you will have to add or import domains from lists you can download from the Internet. KeexyBox allows you to import Blacklist made for SquidGuard and also lists made for Pi-Hole.

You should find some insteresting lists to import from this address: http://www.squidguard.org/blacklists.html.

When you make changes on the Blacklist, the listing of categories is not updated immediately. This is because the Blacklist can contains millions of domains and the refresh of data is done in the background to keep a good user experience. However you can force the refresh by clicking on .

What is a domain?

Before working on the Blacklist, you have to understand what is a domain and how KeexyBox block domains in the Blacklist.

For KeexyBox, a domain is the address of the website that users type in the browser URL bar to visit the website. We will take as an example the list of domains below to explain the behavior of KeexyBox to block websites:

You can see that domain.com is the common part of the name between domains. www, www2 and sub are subdomains of domain.com. There is also another level of subdomain where host1 and host2 are subdomains of sub.domain.com.

Add or import domains to the Blacklist

On the page Blacklist categories click on the plus button. You will be redirected to a form to add domains to the Blacklist.

:!: If you import list that contains millions of domains, the import can take several minutes. So go away, and take a coffee during the importation ;-).

There are 3 ways to add domains to the Blacklist. It is explained below.

Add domains to the Blacklist manually

By this way, you can directly enter the domain names to add to the Blacklist. To to it:

  1. Enter the domains to add in the text area: Here you can add domains to the Blacklist line per line or separated by a space.
  2. Overwrite the category of existing domains in the Blacklist: Check this box if the category must be replaced for existing domains you are adding.
  3. Select an existing Category or Create new category by entering the name of this new category.
  4. Click on Save.

Import domains to the Blacklist from lists available on the Internet

By this way, you can import domains from text files lists directly accessible from the Internet. This is typically the method to use to import for example lists provided for Pi-Hole. To to it:

  1. Enter in the text area, URLs that pointing to text files that contains domains to import: You can here import domains to the Blacklist from lists available on the Internet (one URL per line).
  2. Select an existing Category or Create new category by entering the name of this new category.
  3. Click on Save.

Import domains to the Blacklist from a file

By this way, you can import domains from tar.gz files that you have downloaded manually from the Internet. This is typically the method to use to import for example lists provided for SquidGuard. To to it:

  1. At the bottom of the page, Click on Import. You will be redirected to the import form.
  2. Select tar.gz file: Click on Browse.
  3. Select the tar.gz file to import.
  4. Click on Save.

:!: Only domains part of the file are imported. During the import, domains are automaticaly categorized.

Manage categories

You can do some actions on categories of domains on the page Blacklist categories.

On the column action to the right of each category:

  1. You can click on if you want to delete the category with domains it contains.
  2. You can click on if you want to export the category to tar.gz file format.

You also can do bulk actions on categories:

  1. Check boxes to the left of the categories you want to do an action.
  2. At the bottom of the page, in the selection menu (select action), choose one of the available actions.
  3. Click on Run to confirm the action.

The available bulk actions are discribed below.

Query the Blacklist and manage domains in it

This tool allows you to find domains in the Blacklist. It allows you to delete domains or move them to another category.

On the page Blacklist categories click on the search button. You will be redirected to the Blacklist's query form page.

There are 3 fields to query the blacklist:

  1. The first to the left, allows you to define the number of results per page.
  2. The second allows you to search in one of the categories.
  3. The third allows you to enter the domain name to search.

You have to click on the icon to execute the search. The domains found will be listed. You now have the option of doing some actions on it.

To make action on domains :

  1. Check boxes to the left of domains you want to do an action.
  2. At the bottom of the page, in the selection menu (select action), choose one of the available actions.
  3. Click on Run to confirm the action.

The available actions are discribed below.

What about the Whitelist?

There is no whitelist on KeexyBox. However, you can create a Blacklist category called for example whitelist, add domains you wish whitelist in it, and never assign the whitelist category to any profile. This workaround can help but will not cover every cases.

You also would have to whitelist a domain because it is not reachable while it is not in the Blacklist. There is a diagnostic tool in KeexyBox that can help you to solve this problem. See this topic.