Clients

Web Security Help | Web Security Solutions | Version 7.8.x

You can customize how your Websense Web Security solution manages requests from specific users or machines by adding them as clients in the Web Security manager. Clients can be:

Computers: Individual machines in your network, defined by IP address.

Networks: Groups of machines, defined collectively as an IP address range.

Directory clients: User, group, or domain (OU) accounts in a supported directory service.


	Note In Websense Web Security Gateway Anywhere deployments, the hybrid service can apply policies to users or groups, and to filtered locations, but not to individual clients or networks. See Working with hybrid service clients.

Initially, all client requests are managed by the Default policy (see The Default policy). Once you add a client to the Clients page in the Web Security manager, you can assign that client a specific policy.

When multiple policies could apply, such as when one policy is assigned to the user and another is assigned to the machine, by default, Websense Filtering Service uses the following enforcement order:

Apply the policy assigned to the user making the request. If that policy has no filters scheduled at the time of the request, use the next applicable policy.

If there is no user-specific policy, or the policy has no active filters at the time of the request, look for a policy assigned to the computer (first) or network (second) from which the request was made.

If there is no computer or network-specific policy, or the policy has no active filters at the time of the request, look for a policy assigned to any group to which the user belongs. If the user belongs to multiple groups, Websense Filtering Service considers all group policies that apply (see Enforcement order).

If there is no group policy, look for a policy assigned to the user's domain (OU).

If no applicable policy is found, or the policy does not enforce a category filter at the time of the request, enforce the Default policy for the role to which the client has been assigned.

For more detailed information about how Filtering Service processes requests, see Responding to a URL request.

For information about configuring Filtering Service to prioritize group and domain policies over IP address-based (computer and network) policies, see Prioritizing group and domain policies.

For information about how the hybrid service applies policies to clients, see Enforcement order.