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Barracuda CloudGen Firewall

This Firmware Version Is End-Of-Support

Documentation for this product is no longer updated. Please see End-of-Support for CloudGen Firewall Firmware for further information on our EoS policy.

How to Enforce Safe Search in the Firewall

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You can protect users behind a Barracuda CloudGen Firewall from undesired content in search results by enabling Safe Search for the access rule handling web traffic. The necessary parameters are automatically appended to the URL when the request is forwarded by the firewall to enforce SafeSearch. Safe Search is supported for Google, Bing, Yahoo and YouTube search engines.

Limitations

  • Safe Search relies on the supported search engines to honor and filter the search results. The firewall can enable this feature, but the execution is left up to the search engine.
  • Safe Search is not enforced for mobile search apps.
  • Safe Search is always set to strict.

Before You Begin

Create an Access Rule to Enforce Safe Search

You can enforce the usage of Safe Search for all web traffic matching an access rule by enabling the Safe Search settings in the Application Control settings of the access rule.

  1. Go to CONFIGURATION > Configuration Tree > Box > Virtual Servers > your virtual server > Assigned Services > Firewall > Forwarding Rules.
  2. Click Lock.
  3. Either click the plus icon (+) at the top right of the ruleset, or right-click the ruleset and select New > Rule.
    FW_Rule_Add01.png
  4. Select Pass as the action.
  5. Enter a name for the rule. For example, SafeSearch-LAN-2-INTERNET
  6. Specify the following settings to match your web traffic:
    • Source – The source addresses of the traffic.
    • Destination – Select Internet.
    • Service – Select HTTP+S
    • Connection Method – Select Dynamic NAT
    safe_search01.png
  7. Click on the Application Policy link and select:
    • Application Control – required.
    • SSL Inspection – Required for search provides which are available exclusively via HTTPS.
    • URL Filter – optional. 
    • Safe Search – required.
      safe_search02.png
  8. If configured, select a policy from the SSL Inspection Policy drop-down list. For more information, see How to Configure Outbound SSL Inspection.
  9. (optional) Set additional matching criteria:
  10. Click OK.
  11. Click Send Changes and Activate.

Every search query handled by this access rule now automatically enables the Safe Search feature of the search engine provider.

safe_search03.png

Disabling SafeSearch for YouTube

In addition to removing the policy on the matching access rules, it is also necessary to clear the browser cache to remove the YouTube safe search cookie.