Policies causing conflict

- [Instructor] Policies can be a great way that you can limit what users can and can't do using your wireless access point or your Wi-Fi network! But sometimes, these policies get in the way and they can cause access to legitimate sites to be blocked. So, let's take a look at how we can set up policies on both the Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6 routers. So, I'm going to click on Advanced, and I'm going to scroll down to where it says HomeShield. And Under HomeShield, I'm going to go to where it says Parental Controls. Currently, there are no controls, so I'll click on Add, and I'll give it a profile name. You can also choose an Age option or just Prefer Not to Say. And now, you can add which devices you're going to go ahead and block. I'll say, I want to block the MoneyMaker computer from doing certain things. So, I'll click Add, click Next! Now, I want to filter sites out that I don't want anyone who uses that computer to be able to access. Let's say I don't want them to access any adult content. We can also specifically block certain websites. So, you just have to add in the URL that you want to block. So, I'll block dontgothere.com, I don't know if that's an actual site or not, I just made it up. Click Next! You can also block by certain times of the day or times of the evening. This is a great troubleshooting place to look by the way, because if this got set up unintentionally, then your users might not be able to access the internet at all! Or, maybe you want them to be able to be blocked at certain times. And it's something that you set up on purpose, but the users are complaining about it. But this is the place where you set that up and also to take a look at to troubleshoot. So, I'll go ahead and keep that as it is. So, it's going to block all access to the internet for that particular computer. It's going to block adult content, and it's going to block that one specific website. Let's do something similar on the Aruba, which is going to be controlled on a network controller on the internet. So, I'll Create a Policy, and it'll ask me, do I want to block applications or block networks? I'm going to say Applications. And once again, we're given very similar different types of applications such as adult content and things like that. I do want to allow business and education, and I don't want to block gaming, maybe you do. I'll leave the rest as you see here. I do want to choose an action and choose to Deny access to those particular applications! Now, it says it's an application, but really all it means is that if someone goes to a website or uses a resource on the internet that's discovered to have things like adult content, then it will be blocked. I can also choose to add a Condition and choose Networks. These are my two wireless access types of networks that my SSIDs that I have. So if I want to block it on one but not block it on the other, then I can choose which one to uncheck and which one to check. So if you have a guest network, you may want to have different types of rules than you have for your internal network. So, I'll click Next. Now, I'll give it a name, I'll call it Block sites and click Finish. I'm going to click on the View Details option. And here, I can go in and make any changes. So if you're finding sites that are being blocked that shouldn't be blocked, then you can go ahead and go in and make changes here. You could also go into the policies and create a policy that's an allow policy. So once again, I'll choose Applications. But this time, I'm going to choose Allow. And I'm just going to Allow Education just as an example, and click Next. And here, you can see the priority. And this is one of those areas that you should look for if you're troubleshooting issues. If you have multiple policies, and it's possible that one is conflicting with the other. So for instance, if I had an allow policy for adult content and a block policy for adult content, then that's a conflict. And it's going to take whichever policy is higher. So, be sure to check the policies that you have in your network controller or in your particular local website of your individual wireless access point to find out if the policies are causing a conflict, that will definitely be an area that you need to troubleshoot. Parental controls and policies are great ways to protect your network, but should also be checked for issues of conflict when legitimate sites are being blocked.