Active management for small office/home office networking

According to one embodiment of the present invention, an active management system for a SOHO network includes an active management agent module operating in a SOHO network device that maintains ongoing real-time communications with an active management console module at an active management personal computer in the SOHO network. A secured communications protocol defines the format of packets to communicate queries and responses between the gateway and the active management computer. The queries enable real-time active management functions including outgoing connection approvals, incoming connection approvals, user access authorization, automatic ALG suggestions, personal content filtering, status reporting, and traffic statistics reporting.