Testing Regular Expressions in PGP Universal Server Dictionaries

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

This article details how to test regular expressions on a PGP Universal Server without needing to send an email to test the expression.

 

Resolution

Dictionaries are lists of terms to be matched. Dictionaries work with mail policy to allow you to define content lists that can trigger rules or fulfill the conditions of a rule to trigger actions. For example, Dictionaries can contain addresses you want excluded from processing, key words such as confidential, or user names for internal users whose messages need special handling.

A policy rule can have a dictionary associated with it as a condition. If a message meets the condition, the PGP Universal Server processes the message according the rules action.

There are two types of dictionaries:

 

• Static dictionaries are editable lists of literal or pattern strings. All except one of the dictionaries are static.
• Dynamic dictionaries are not editable but are maintained by the PGP Universal Server. Information in the dictionary comes from data elsewhere on the PGP Universal Server rather than added directly to the dictionary by hand. There is one dynamic dictionary, the Managed Domains dictionary.

• Literals are dictionary entries that can only match against the exact characters in the entry. There is one and only one possible match. For example, if the dictionary entry is [email protected], then a message matches the entry only if it contains [email protected]. Similar strings, for example, [email protected], do not match.
• Patterns are dictionary entries that match against characters in messages that satisfy the pattern. For example, the pattern r.*@example.com requires a match for the letter "r", then any number of other characters, then the sequence "@example.com", it matches "[email protected]" and "[email protected]". Use regular expression syntax to create patterns.

Use the following steps to test expressions in a new or other custom added dictionary.

 

1. Login to the PGP Universal Server administrative interface.
2. Click the Policy card then select Dictionaries.
3. Click the desired dictionary's name to test from the Dictionaries list.
4. Above Term, click the drop-down arrow and change the option from Search for term to Evaluate expression.
5. Type a sample string to be tested then click Go.

A list of terms that fit the criteria you specified appears.