Authentication determines who the user is and their group membership, if configured or received from an external source. This in turn determines the level of access available to authentication-enabled services.
Most web filtering policies need mandatory user authentication. Typically, unauthenticated users are prevented from accessing authentication-enabled services such as the Internet.
Firewall services typically classify unauthenticated users as Unauthenticated IPs. Unauthenticated users might only have limited access to authentication-enabled services is available to this group, or even no access at all.
In any case, a failed authentication attempt results in either a request to retry authentication, or an error.
Authentication policies
Authentication policies use an authentication method to identify users so that the Smoothwall Filter can apply your filtering policies to the relative users in either a transparent or non transparent setup.
You can use the policy wizard to create transparent and nontransparent web proxy authentication policies with various authentication methods. The Smoothwall Filter applies authentication policies in the order they're displayed on the Manage policies Page page.
You can change the order the policies are applied. You can make changes to existing authentication policies, including turning them off for later use, without removing the policy. You can use the policy wizard to create new policies, see Creating authentication policies.
When you first purchase the Smoothwall Filter and Firewall, it comes with two default authentication policies, a non-transparent authentication policy and a transparent authentication policy, both with the Core authentication method.
Transparent and non-transparent
A transparent authentication policy applies your web filter policies and authentication method to your users' devices without the need to configure their devices.
A non-transparent authentication policy applies your web filter policies and authentication method to your users' devices but you need to ensure that you configure their devices to use the Smoothwall Filter as their web proxy.
Authentication methods
The Smoothwall Filter uses authentication to:
- Identify users and assign them to groups, so that the Smoothwall Filter can apply different policies to each group.
- Allow access to registered users or trusted devices.
- Provide logging and auditing facilities in case of misuse.
- Show the users accessing content in real time.
The Smoothwall Filter can use several different authentication methods to identify a user or user group, with different conditions and restrictions, see Authentication Methods.