Websense Content Gateway (Content Gateway) is a Linux-based, high-performance Web proxy and cache that provides real-time content scanning and Web site classification to protect network computers from malicious Web content while controlling employee access to dynamic, user-generated Web 2.0 content. Web content has evolved from a static information source to a sophisticated platform for 2-way communications, which can be a valuable productivity tool when adequately secured.
In a software-based deployment, Content Gateway is a required part of Websense Web Security Gateway and Web Security Gateway Anywhere deployments. Content Gateway must be installed on a Linux machine. Typically, the machine is dedicated to running Content Gateway.
Content Gateway can also provide Web caching, improving bandwidth usage and network performance by storing requested Web pages and, while a stored page is considered fresh, serving that Web page to the requesting client.
In addition, Content Gateway can scan for content categorization. This feature examines the content on Web pages that are not included in the Websense Master Database and on pages that Websense has determined to have rapidly changing content. After this examination, Content Gateway returns a recommended category to Websense filtering software, which then permits or blocks the Web page depending on the policy in effect.
Websense Web Security Gateway and Web Security Gateway Anywhere subscribers get the following features, in addition to the standard Websense filtering and proxy features:
When installed as part of Websense Web Security Gateway Anywhere, Content Gateway also works with Websense Data Security Management Server to prevent data loss over Web channels. For more information, see
Web Security Gateway Anywhere (software-based).
If you enable SSL Manager, in addition to filtering HTTPS URLs, the content on those pages is decrypted, examined for security issues, and, if appropriate, re-encrypted and forwarded to the destination.
When you run Content Gateway with Websense Data Security, which inspects HTTPS and FTP traffic, you must enable the SSL Manager feature. See the Content Gateway Manager Help for information on SSL Manager.
These installation instructions are for installing Content Gateway software on a server. In Websense-appliance-based deployment of Websense Web Security Gateway or Web Security Gateway Anywhere, Content Gateway is already installed on the appliance and these instructions do not apply.
Select the Help option in Websense Content Gateway Manager to display detailed information about using the product.