Specifying data centers in PAC file

Products

• Cloud Secure Web Gateway - Cloud SWG

Issue/Introduction

There is a need to ensure that all traffic stays within a specific geographic region or a specific data center. 

Resolution

With explicit proxy, you would add a new PAC file in your portal account that specifies a specifc data center (using its IP address) instead of directing traffic to proxy.threatpulse.net as the default PAC file does. You can add multiple IPs to add redundancy. Ideally, you would want to list data centers that are closest to reduce latency.

Please reference the following article for a list of data centers and thier IPs that can be selected based on your needs:

Data center IP addresses for Web Security Service

Below are the steps to add a new PAC file with specific data center IPs listed:

1. Navigate to your portal account.
2. Click Service > Mobility > PAC file management
3. Click "+ New File"
4. Here you will be able to fill in the details of your PAC file and modify the file to fit your needs. (name, description, etc.)
5. To specify a specific data center, you will modify the last line of the file:
   return "PROXY proxy.threatpulse.net:8080;DIRECT";  
6. Replace proxy.threatpulse.net with the IP address of the data center(s) that you want to use.
   Example: return "PROXY 199.19.250.164:8080; PROXY 199.247.42.164:8080; DIRECT"; (This line lists the Washington DC center as the primary, and Chicago as the secondary)
7. Under the Locations tab, you can edit the list of your locations that will use this PAC file. If no location is specified, the PAC file will be used by all locations. (Note: You will be able to use this PAC file for any locations listed under your network locations) (Service > Network  > Locations)
8. Go back to the editor tab and Click Save.
9. Test the result by going to pod.threatpulse.com to ensure that you are connected to the correct data center.

 

A note on locations: 

If all your locations are relatively close geographically, you can use the same PAC file to direct all traffic to the same data center for all locations. For example, if your primary location is nearer to one data center, but you also have another location closer to another data center, you may want to create and use a different PAC file for each location with the closest data center listed as the primary data center in each location's PAC file to reduce latency.