Web Gateway 7.1.5 Product Guide - McAfee

5
Authentication and access management
Filtering users
Process flow for authenticating a user
When a user sends a request to the web, the appliance intercepts it and begins processing the
implemented rules. If these include authentication rules, the request is also checked by them. To
trigger an action, an authentication rule needs to know whether the user who sent the request is
authenticated. The authentication module retrieves user information and tells the rule about its
findings.
If the module has found that the user is not authenticated, the process flow is as follows:
User is authenticated? – No.
–>
The user is informed that authentication is required and asked to provide credentials
for authenticating.
–> Processing of requests stops. The appliance waits until the next request is sent.
When the user sends an authentication request including credentials, all implemented rules of the
request cycle are processed again. When it comes to processing the authentication rules, the
credentials are checked to see if they are sufficient to authenticate the user. If this is the case, the
process continues as follows:
–> User is authenticated? – Yes.
–>
Processing continues with the next rules in the request cycle.
If not blocked by any of these, the request is passed on the appropriate web server.
The authentication process uses the elements of an authentication rule in different ways. The rule
criteria is processed to find out whether a user is already authenticated. The rule action eventually
requests the user to authenticate.
120 McAfee Web Gateway 7.1.5 Product Guide