Cisco Viptela SDWAN: Configuring URL Filtering

Cisco Viptela SDWAN: Configuring URL Filtering

In order to restrict employee access to websites, organizations use uniform resource locator (URL) filtering. In other words, URL filtering protects employees from accessing websites and content that are not authorized.

By utilizing URL-based policies, URL Filtering allows networks to block traffic to certain sites. Implemented using the Snort Engine, it has a number of security features.

Fig 1.1- vManage Login

Lets go to create the Firewall Policy in the Cisco Viptela SDWAN

Step 1: On the vManage GUI, navigate to Configuration => Security, There you can add the security policy there ( URL filtering)

Fig 1.2- URL Filtering

Step 2: Now its time to check for the policy. Go ahead and add the Custom policy with the category of URL filtering

Fig 1.3- URL Filtering

Step 3: Enter auth-shop for the Policy Name. Set the Web Categories to Block and add auctions and shopping to the categories. Set the Web Reputation to High Risk

Fig 1.4- URL Filtering

Step 4: Now as we said, we need to add the content body as shown below, so put "Not Allowed" in the Content Body and make sure all the Alerts are selected. Click on Save URL Filtering Policy

Fig 1.5- URL Filtering

Step 5: Make sure the auth-shop URL Filtering policy shows up and click on Save Policy Changes.

Click on Next and choose to Configure Devices. You can check the side-by-side configuration if needed, making note of the web-filter and block page-profile configuration being pushed by vManage.

Step 6: Verify, Open an Incognito window in Chrome or a Private Browsing tab in Mozilla Firefox. Try to access http://www.amazon.ca. The page should get blocked, giving the message we had customized.