Working with Whitelist and Blacklist

Working with Whitelist and Blacklist

At times, it may be helpful to fully block or allow a domain based on your desired outcome. The White/Black List tab allows you to create and manage custom block and allow lists. You can associate these lists with all policies (global) or assign them to a specific policy if you want to apply them to certain sites or networks.



Create List

To create a list, select "NEW W/B LIST" from the top right of the Custom Lists page. You can name the list and add a description to clarify its purpose. If you want this list to apply to all policies across all sites, select "Global."

Keep in mind that whitelist entries override blacklist entries. Therefore, Global whitelist entries will take precedence over both local and global blacklist entries. You can designate multiple lists as Global.



Edit List

A list can be used to specifically allow, block, or both depending on desired result. Simply select the Allow tab to add whitelisted entries and the Block tab to add blacklisted entries. 

You can enter any domain for fully qualified domain with syntax as followed:

aol.com                       (This will affect the domain only and ignore sub-domains)
*.aol.com                  (This will affect the host/sub-domain only and ignore the domain)

We do not allow HTTP or URLs as only domain-based entries can be processed.

Further Examples:
Blacklisting *.yahoo.com would block news.yahoo.com but allow yahoo.com.
Blacklisting yahoo.com will block yahoo.com but allow mail.yahoo.com.

In order to fully block or allow a domain/website, it is best to create two entries:
yahoo.com
*.yahoo.com





Order of White/Black List Rules

Below is the processing order within the system to help you better understand how rules are applied. In short, whitelists override blacklists, and global lists take override all. The entry types are listed in order of priority:

  1. Global Whitelist
  2. Global Blacklist
  3. Standard Whitelist
  4. Standard Blacklist


Apply White/Black List to Policy

Global lists do not need to be applied to a policy, as they automatically apply across your entire account. If you want to assign a list to a specific policy for use at particular sites or networks, you can do so from the Policy tab.

To assign a list to a custom policy:

  1. Navigate to the Policy tab.

  2. Select the custom policy to which you want to apply the list.

Note: White/Black lists cannot be assigned to default policies.





Now select "Edit Policy" at upper right corner. Here you can select the "White/Black List" field and choose any number of custom lists you wish to apply to the current policy. Global lists do not need to be selected. Now, simply save the policy and your White/Black list settings will be applied to all networks with the selected policy.









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