Outlook email

[nicholashayman1]

Hi,

I want to block the 'Webmail' category but still allow Microsoft's email services as an exception. outlook.com (home email) and outlook.office365.com (business email). I've blocked the webmail category but put to never block outlook.live.com or outlook.office365.com but OpenDNS still blocks them.

Please help

Thanks
Nicholas

[rotblitz]

You can visit https://dashboard.opendns.com/stats/all/blockeddomains to see what domains still need to be whitelisted.  If this is too hard, install http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dns_query_sniffer.html to see in real-time what domains are being queried when you use Outlook.com.  You can whitelist them then.

"put to never block outlook.live.com or outlook.office365.com but OpenDNS still blocks them."

Really?  How exactly did you prove this?  This would be the test:

nslookup outlook.live.com.

nslookup outlook.office365.com.

[mkap]

Something else to keep in mind that may or may not help is depending on your system, DNS cache may come into play.

In my environments (Windows Active Directory) I always flush my DNS cache on both my workstations and servers when unblocking a site that was previously blocked. Also restart any web browsers.

When I didn't do this, I'd see a domain remain in a "blocked" state for some time until the cached entries timed out.

[rotblitz]

You're absolutely correct, but tools like nslookup do not use the local resolver cache.

[junioradventure2020]

Hi, You can block the category webmail, and then in your custon options below, you can filter the individual domains, in your case outlook.com and outlook.office365.com, but if that doesn't work, then maybe unblock the other domains that could be affiliated with Outlook, such as office.com and microsoft.com. If you unblock the webmail category, then use the webpages, then check your stats - specific domains - and then you will know which domains to whitelist.

Good luck!