Sidewinder G2 6.1.2 Administration Guide - Glossary of Technical ...

Chapter 4: Understanding Policy Configuration
Rule elements
Rule elements Rule elements are the building blocks for your rules and help you save time
and effort by allowing you to group information, reducing the number of rules
you need to create. Rule elements consist of the following:
• Users and user groups—Users can be placed in user groups, allowing you
to apply a single proxy rule to multiple users who share the same access
privileges. See “Users and user groups” on page 104.
• Network objects—Network objects are entities for which you configure the
Sidewinder G2 to allow or deny connections. They can consist of IP
addresses, hosts, domains, netmaps, subnets, or netgroups. See “Network
objects” on page 105.
• Service groups—A service group is a collection of proxies and/or servers.
When specified in a proxy rule, the rule will regulate access to all proxies
and servers defined within that service group. See “Service groups” on
page 108.
Planning for rule elements
In providing network security, the main objective of the Sidewinder G2 is to
enforce a set of rules that reflect your desired security policy. Properly defining
and creating user groups, network objects, and service groups provides you
with building blocks you can use to create sound rules. Remember, the groups
you create and the rules you define serve as the embodiment of your site’s
security policy.
The following list provides guidelines to consider when planning your rule
elements:
• Start by considering your security policy. If you do not have a security
policy, see the Perimeter Security Planning Guide (located on the
Sidewinder G2 Management Tools CD) for information on how to develop
one.
• Decide if you want to control access based on user groups, netgroups, or
both.
• If you want to control access based on user groups, make a list defining all
users, and organize the list by the networking services they will be granted
and authentication methods they must use.
• Plan to include all users who require access to the same services using the
same authentication methods in the same group.
• Plan to create service groups for each user or netgroup that requires
access to the same services to reduce the number of rules you need to
create.
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