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Unblock Gmail?

Hello All,

I've got a request from a client to unblock GMAIL while still blocking other Webmail sites.  The content filter category is working well at blocking all webmail sites and I figured the best way to unblock GMAIL would be to add an exception.  However, I'm a little stuck on what to add to the exception list to allow complete GMAIL access.  It appears that www.gmail.com will forward you to https://www.google.com/accounts... and after you authenticate it takes you to mail.google.com.  I've tried adding gmail.com and mail.google.com (assuming that Google is already allowed since the client can search google)to the exception list but no dice.  My random attempts at adding "*" to various positions in my exceptions bore no fruit.  I'm guessing I'm missing something that could be covered off by using regular expressions but I must say that I know next to nothing about them.    Can anyone help a brother out?

Thanks,
Mike


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Parents
  • Mike, if you are using a version 7.3 or above, then all you need is a 'URL Filter' exception for gmail.com and google.com.  You no longer need fancy regular expressions; if "google.com" is found anywhere in the URL, the URL will qualify for the exception.  You can see that you don't need *.

    Cheers - Bob
     
    Sophos UTM Community Moderator
    Sophos Certified Architect - UTM
    Sophos Certified Engineer - XG
    Gold Solution Partner since 2005
    MediaSoft, Inc. USA
Reply
  • Mike, if you are using a version 7.3 or above, then all you need is a 'URL Filter' exception for gmail.com and google.com.  You no longer need fancy regular expressions; if "google.com" is found anywhere in the URL, the URL will qualify for the exception.  You can see that you don't need *.

    Cheers - Bob
     
    Sophos UTM Community Moderator
    Sophos Certified Architect - UTM
    Sophos Certified Engineer - XG
    Gold Solution Partner since 2005
    MediaSoft, Inc. USA
Children
  • Hello Bob! I can't thank you enough for this tip! It is so simple and yet, very powerful way to accomplish "block all except some". As I am writing this I just realized your post is 11 years old - well, I had to say Thank You!. I was struggling with firewall rules and maintaining ip pools that change continuously. Now, all I had to do was to add an exception for what I need. In addition, the exception can be limited to specific hosts or network by using "AND" "Coming from these networks". Furthermore, the url(s) can be limited, as well - for example, I only need hostupdate.vmware.com and vapp-updates.vmware.com (not all vmware domain).