Overview
Netsweeper provides various tools for testing Categorization as well as Policy enforcement, (such as the Category Lookup tool and the Trace Request tool).
However, sometimes you may need to manually access a site that falls into a specific Category (such as Pornography) to ensure that access is denied (or allowed) as expected.
In such cases, it may be desirable to ensure there is no risk of accessing denied content, (such as when testing with Pornography). Many Categoriees that are typically denied include a sample "test" URL that can be used to confirm filtering without the risk of viewing restricted content in the event of a failure.
Testing Filtering With Netsweeper Test URLs
Please note: The following steps will require you have the ability to push traffic through your deployment.
Additionally, if you are testing due to an issue with a specific Group, it is important to ensure that your test Client is placed into the affected Group, otherwise the results of the below test cannot be considered to be reliable.
- In your WebAdmin, navigate to Tools > Category Lookup and select the 'Category Definitions' tab.
- Scroll through the Categories menu or search for the desired Category with the Category Filter.
- Copy the 'denypagetests' URL (e.g., http://denypagetests.netsweeper.com/category/catno/23)
- Paste the URL into a test device or browser.
- If filtering is working, you will see a denypage, as expected.
- If filtering is not working, you will see the following page:
- If filtering is working, you will see a denypage, as expected.
If the Deny Page is served, Category filtering is working and can be ruled out if there is any issue. If however, the 'test' page is served, this indicates there is an issue with Category filtering and further investigation is required.
In such a scenario, please refer to our troubleshooting documentation and reach out to Netsweeper Support.