Adding https custom sites on SmartFilter 3.22

[paulomv]

Hi,

Just upgraded my server from Smartfilter 3.12 to version 3.22 and the problem I'm getting is that before the upgrade I could add https:// custom sites but now I cannot.

I get the message "Invalid URL".

Is there any workaround to this problem or something I'm doing wrong?

[mark.duffy]

Hi

This is not the answer your after yet, (I've got a test rig as part of a big deployment I'm doing at the moment using multiple CE's and SF, so I'll have a play a bit later and post a response back).

Anyway, what I did find which saves a lot of time is you can edit the config files on the server and force the CE to read them back which saves a lot of time.

All the configs are stored as text files of the SF server, in the sf folder under configs.

If you copy a list into the default folder when you first create a new CE and don't say I want to copy the files from the plugin it will use the server copy in default.

You can *sometimes* overwrite the server ones, make a change to say the sites.txt file, make a minor change to the server like the admin email address and it will push the server copy down when you deploy. I also found if you delete the copy on the CE in the smartfilter folder it will reread back from the server.

I'll let you know what I find with https later, I've noticed a few quirks with how 3.22 works compared to 3.12.

Mark

[mark.duffy]

Hi

I've just finished having a play, you may have already realised this but here's the answer for anybody else. From what I can see you can either create a pattern to block the entire domain where the HTTPS site is or put a site in as HTTP and if somebody tries to access it using HTTPS it will bar this as well. I tried it with bank website, by blocking http://www.Xbank.XXXX.co.uk it also blocks https://www.XbankX.XXXXX.co.uk with the message, forbidden https://www.XbankX.XXXX.co.uk:443 is categorised etc.

It does do it just no logically, hope that helps.

Mark

[paulomv]

Hi Mark,

Followed your tip about adding http and trying https and it worked. Great.

I do not consider it very functional because there might be some special reason to block http and not https and you have no option there when what the guy from Secure Computing would have only to simply accept the string.

Thank You very much for your support.

Paulo

[mark.duffy]

Hi

Glad it help you out, there are a few things I've never been impressed with about Smartfiler 3.X. The fact it doesn't process boolean operators correctly in the CGI search strings, ie put a + in front of any rude word and it misses it.

The other gotcha I had the other day was not reading the manual on NT Domains for NTLM authentication, 1) it only works with ACNS 5.1, 2) it uses an agent on the host domain controller and 3) you can only have 1 NT Domain per SF Server which is poor for deployments in Schools that have multiple domains.

Hopefully the next release with SF version 4 will fix a few bugs.

Glad to be of help,

Mark