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Barracuda NextGen Firewall X
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This Product is End-of-Life and End-Of-Support

End-Of-Life and End-Of-Support on December 1st, 2020: All Barracuda Firewall X-Series sales will cease; neither new sales nor any renewals will be available. If you currently hold a maintenance and support contract, you will continue to receive our award-winning support and services until your contract expires. Please see the End-Of-Life definition as described in the End of Support and End of Life Information.

URL Filtering in the Firewall

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The Barracuda NextGen Firewall X-Series offers real-time URL filtering for web and application traffic. URL filtering is handled as part of the application policy. In combination with Application Control, URL filtering can also be enabled on a per-access-rule basis. To use URL filtering, you must have a Barracuda Web Security Subscription.

URL Filter Policies

URL Filter policies define access restrictions for URL categories. To restrict or allow access to specific URL categories and/or websites, create URL policy objects. When applied to an application policy, the URL policy object defines how the application policy handles user access to websites based on the URL Filter policy. When configuring a URL policy object, assign a policy for every URL category with the option of including custom URL block and allow lists.  The following actions are available for each URL category:

  • Allow – Allows access to all URLs defined in the category.
  • Warn – Users are redirected to a warning page and must click Continue to access the website. Set Warn and Continue override to configure the timeout after which the user is redirected to the warning page again.
  • Alert – Users are allowed to access websites in this category, but the action is silently logged. Go to BASIC > Application Monitor to see the websites that trigger the alert action.
  • Override – Users are redirected to the URL Filter Override page and can request temporary access from an administrator to a URL from a denied category. 
  • Block – Blocks access to all URLs defined in the category.

For more information, see URL Policy Objects.

Configure URL Filtering

To configure URL filtering, apply URL policy objects to application policies. A URL policy object defines the action to be performed by the X-Series Firewall when your users connect to a website and the application policy applies. The X-Series Firewall sends the visited URL to a large online database for URL categorization and then performs the action specified in the URL policy object. To use application policies with URL policy objects for web and application traffic, you must also enable URL filtering separately in the matching access rule.

For more information, see How to Configure URL Filtering in the Firewall.

Configure URL Filter Overrides

If the action for the detected URL category is set to override in the URL Filter Policy object, the user can request permission for a URL category override. A URL Filter override admin must grant the request and set the duration of the override request. Override requests are granted per URL category.

For more information, see How to Configure URL Filter Overrides.