This article applies to organisations with a 'Hybrid' setup (both On-Premise Appliance and Cloud), as well as On-Premise only and Cloud only setups.
What is a Walled Garden?
A Walled Garden is a web filtering setup that restricts a specific group of users to access only a limited set of domains or websites. Unlike the usual approach, where most content is accessible by default and only restricted when needed, a Walled Garden blocks everything except selected domains. For example:
- Exam conditions: Create a temporary block that restricts access to all but a few domains, such as examination software, during exam hours
- Location-specific filtering: Set up a Location containing machines that can access only certain categories or sites for a specific purpose.
Before you begin
Just like any set of Web Filter policies, you’ll need to identify:
- Who the policies apply to, identified by their User Group or as individual users.
- Where the policy applies, based on Location.
- When the policy will be active, based on Time slots.
You’ll also need a list of what content the users should be allowed to access while the Walled Garden applies. You can:
- Create a Custom Category that contains the domains they will require access to.
- Create a Category Group that contains the allowed categories.
- Use a combination of both.
Create your Walled Garden
(On-Premise Appliance only) Set up Inspection and Exceptions
- Add or remove HTTPS Inspection for the allowed category or category group.
- Set up any Authentication Exceptions needed.
Set up your Web Filter Policies
Tip
Creating the Web Filter policies for your Walled Garden is best done within a policy folder, so the policies are kept together and can be switched on or off as required.
Create two Web Filter policies within a Policy Folder:
- A policy to Allow or Do Not Filter (only available to set up in On-Premise Appliance) the content that is permitted in the What field.
- A policy to Block the Everything category in the What field. Order this below your Allow policy.
Image 1: Example setup in On-Premise Appliance.
Image 2: Example setup in Cloud.