Adding and editing web filter policy folders and policies

Note: If the padlock icon is red, this indicates that your Smoothwall Filter and Firewall administrator is logged in and making changes. Therefore, your page is locked from being updated until they log out. Once they've made their changes and logged out, their changes are updated in the Filter user interface and the page is unlocked.

Prerequisites

  • So that you don't need to add lots of categories when adding your web filter policies, we recommend that you create a custom category group to use in your web filter policy, see our help topic, Adding and editing category groups.

Procedure

  1. On the Smoothwall Portal home page, under the Your licensed products section, click Filter and in the navigation pane, click Policies.
  2. On the My policies page, if you have a multitenant setup, scroll to the section that you want to create a folder or policy for. If you want to create it for a specific tenant, from the Tenant list, select the tenant that you want.
    • To create a new folder:
      1. Click Add folder and type the Name for your folder. We recommend that you make this descriptive so that you can see at a glance what the policies in your folder are doing. Use the policy objects as a guide, for example, Lunch time social media access.
      2. If you want all the policies in this folder to have the same action, from the Action list select whether you want all the policies to be set to "Block" or "Allow". Otherwise, leave the default "Overridden" so that you can choose the action for each policy in the folder separately.
      3. If you want all the policies in the folder to be turned off for now, from the Status list, select "Disabled". Otherwise, leave the default "Enabled" option selected.
      4. You need to select at least one policy object for one of the policy object types. However, you can only select policy objects for up to three policy object types to be the fixed policy objects for all the policies in the folder.

        5. To select policy objects:

        • Click in the Who... box and from the list, select the user groups that you want to apply these policies to. You can select as many user groups as you want. "Everyone" is a user group that contains all your users.
        • Click in the What... box and from the list, select the category or category groups that you want to apply to all the policies in the folder. You can select as many categories or category groups that you want. "Everything" is a category that applies to all content including uncategorized content. Therefore, this would either block or allow all content. For example, if you had a block web filter policy with this category, none of your users would be able to access anything. You can select to block or allow content that matches only specific categories.
        • Click in the Where... box and from the list, select the locations of where you want the policies in this folder to apply. "Everywhere" is a location that allows, or blocks content requested by users wherever they are located. You can select to apply the policy to devices located in a specific physical locations.
        • Click in the When... box and from the list, select the time slot that you want the policies in this folder to apply. "Always" is a time slot that applies the policy all the time, but you can select to apply the policy at certain times.
      5. Click Add folder and then add your policies to the folder.
      6. Move your policy folder to the appropriate position in the table by clicking the six dots icon and dragging the folder to the position that you want.
    • To create a new policy:
      1. Click Add policy and type the Name of the policy. We recommend that you make this descriptive so that you can see at a glance what the policy is doing. Use the policy objects as a guide, for example, Lunch time social media access.
      2. From the Action list select whether you want the policy to "Block" or "Allow" the selected content. You won't be able to do this if your policy is in a folder and you set the action when you created the folder.
      3. To create a policy without applying it, change the Status from the default, "Enabled" to "Disabled". You won't be able to do this if your policy is in a folder and you set the action when you created the folder.
      4. If you are creating a policy in a folder, select the policy objects that aren't set by the folder. Otherwise, you need to set all the policy objects.

        5. To select policy objects:

        • Click in the Who... box and from the list, select the user groups that you want to apply these policies to. You can select as many user groups as you want. "Everyone" is a user group that contains all your users.
        • Click in the What... box and from the list, select the category or category groups that you want to apply to all the policies in the folder. You can select as many categories or category groups that you want. "Everything" is a category that applies to all content including uncategorized content. Therefore, this would either block or allow all content. For example, if you had a block web filter policy with this category, none of your users would be able to access anything. You can select to block or allow content that matches only specific categories.
        • Click in the Where... box and from the list, select the locations of where you want the policies in this folder to apply. "Everywhere" is a location that allows, or blocks content requested by users wherever they are located. You can select to apply the policy to devices located in a specific physical locations.
        • Click in the When... box and from the list, select the time slot that you want the policies in this folder to apply. "Always" is a time slot that applies the policy all the time, but you can select to apply the policy at certain times.
      5. After you have added all the policy objects to your policy, click Add policy.
      6. Move your policy to the appropriate position in the policy table or folder by clicking the six dots icon and dragging the policy to the position that you want.

Warning: After you have added your policies, you need to publish your changes for your new policies to take effect for your users, see our help topic, Publishing all your Smoothwall Cloud Filter changes.

Follow-up tasks

  • To rename a policy, click on the policy name and you can edit it. Once, you click off the name, the policy is saved automatically and the page refreshes.
  • To change the action of the policy, click the policy action and from the list, select the new action. Once you click off, the policy is saved automatically and the page refreshes.
  • To turn a policy off, click the Enabled or Disabled toggle button. The change is saved automatically and the page refreshes.
  • To amend the policy objects for a policy, expand the view by clicking the down-pointing arrow. Remove or add policy objects. As you add or remove an object the policy is saved automatically and the page refreshes.
  • To delete a folder or policy, right-click the folder or policy and click Delete folder or Delete policy. Click OK to confirm your deletion.

Warning: Remember to publish your changes for them to take effect, see our help topic, Publishing all your Smoothwall Cloud Filter changes.