Troubleshooting unintentional URL blocking by content filtering on the ProxySG

Products

• ProxySG Software - SGOS

Issue/Introduction

Investingating a particular URL being blocked by content filtering when it should not be.

Resolution

First verify which categories the site belongs to by using the test-url feature in the CLI (see below). Once you know the categories you can verify whether or not you are blocking one of them.

SGOS#(config content-filter)test-url www.somebad.example.com
Testing URL "www.somebad.example.com/"
URL found, categories: Entertainment, Nudity, Online_Sales

This can also be accomplished from the ProxySG GUI interface:

https://<ProxyIP>:8082/ContentFilter/TestURL/<test domain/test URL>

For the example above:

https://:8082/ContentFilter/TestURL/www.somebad.example.com

which displays the page:

Policy: Custom Global Deny

Blue Coat: Adult/Mature Content; Entertainment

You can verify your blocked categories by examining your current policy at http://x.x.x.x:8081/Policy/Current (if an HTTP-console is configured) or https://x.x.x.x:8082/Policy/Current (if an HTTPS-console is configured).

If you feel that the website is incorrectly categorized:

1. Configure a temporary workaround by creating a policy entry that allows the site, placing the "allow" rule before the rule that would have blocked the site:
   • url.domain=www.somebad.example.com ALLOW
category=(Sex) exception(content_filter_denied)
2. Then report the incorrect categorizations via http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/