How to Create Exception Policies for DNS Filtering

You can create domain-level block or allow exceptions to the policies you have already defined (as described in How to Configure DNS Filtering and Policies).  For example, you might want to block the category Finance and Investment for your organization, but allow specific bank and brokerage domains so your finance department can do company business. 

1. Go to the DNS FILTERING page.

2. In the OUTBOUND IP ADDRESS column, locate the network for which you want to update policies, then click EXCEPTIONS .    

   Optional

   If you have already defined a network and want to copy its exceptions: Under Exception Policy, select the name of the network from which you want to copy exceptions. Those exceptions are copied to the network you are currently configuring, overwriting the existing exceptions, if any exist.

      

3. Select Allow Traffic or Block Traffic, and then enter the domain or subdomain name in the format shown in the table. Do not use wildcards ('*'), or include protocols, such as http:// or https://. Note that the '*' wildcard is built-in. So, for example, if you enter mydomain.com, all subdomains (users.mydomain.com, etc.) will be included. Likewise, if you add a subdomain, all TLDs will be included.

   Correct	Incorrect

   Correct	Incorrect
   mydomain.net	https://www.mydomain.net
   www.mail.barracuda.com	*.mail.barracuda.com
   google.com, www.google.com	http://www.google.com
   yourdomain.org	*.yourdomain.org

   Domains and subdomains: All subdomains of the domain you enter are automatically included; in other words, subdomains inherit policies applied for a domain, UNLESS you create an exception. If you want to create an exception for a particular subdomain, you must specify that subdomain explicitly. For example, if you create a Block Traffic exception for google.com, all subdomains are included and blocked. If you want to allow subdomain mail.google.com, create an Allow Traffic exception for the subdomain mail.google.com. Here are more examples of how exceptions work with domains and subdomains:

   Policy	Results

   Policy	Results
   BLOCK google.com ALLOW mail.google.com BLOCK server1.mail.google.com	http://google.com/ BLOCKED (matches google.com) http://inbox.google.com/ BLOCKED (matches google.com) http://mail.google.com/ ALLOWED (matches mail.google.com) http://server1.mail.google.com/ BLOCKED (matches server1.mail.google.com) http://server2.mail.google.com/ ALLOWED (matches mail.google.com)
   BLOCK www.abc.com	http://abc.com ALLOWED (doesn't match www.abc.com)
   BLOCK abc.com	http://www.abc.com BLOCKED (inherits policy from abc.com domain)
   ALLOW abc.com BLOCK z.abc.com	http://z.abc.com BLOCKED (matches z.abc.com) http://y.abc.com ALLOWED (inherits policy from abc.com)

4. Click ADD DOMAIN.

5. Click Save.

To remove an exception, click the Remove icon () in the table.