Just when you think you've seen it all. We finally get our shiny new marketing site launched, and our own SonicWall decides it's a den of iniquity. The content filter (running the Security Services bundle, of course) keeps blocking our own corporate domain. Internal users get the block page when trying to view our own public website.
Yes, I've checked the obvious. The site isn't on any blacklist I can find. I've added the URL to the "Allowed List" under Content Filter > Allow. I've even tried creating an exclusion policy for the source IP range of our internal network, targeting that specific URL category. The thing still intermittently blocks, especially if there's a redirect or a link to a subdomain. It's like playing whack-a-mole with a product we pay to manage our security, not create internal work stoppages.
I'm starting to suspect this is less about configuration and more about the filter's categorization engine being a blunt instrument. Has anyone else fought this particular brand of self-inflicted wound? Is the only real solution to completely bypass filtering for our internal IPs altogether, which feels like a defeat? I'm curious what creative "workarounds" others have been forced to implement when the tool blocks legitimate business functions.
The irony of needing to create an exception so we can view our own website, which presumably contains nothing we're trying to filter *for*, is not lost on me. The total cost of ownership just ticked up another few hours of admin frustration.
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Buyer beware.