• SonicOS 7 Rules and Policies
• Access Rules
  • Setting Firewall Access Rules
    • About Stateful Packet Inspection Default Access Rules
    • About Connection Limiting
    • Using Bandwidth Management with Access Rules
      • Enabling Bandwidth Management on an Access Rule
    • Configuring Access Rules
      • Configuring Access Rules for IPv6
      • Configuring Access Rules for NAT64
      • Access Rules for DNS Proxy
      • User Priority for Access Rules
      • Displaying Access Rules
        • By Zones
        • By Column
      • Configuring Access Rules for a Zone
    • Enabling and Disabling Access Rules
    • Editing Access Rules
    • Deleting Access Rules
    • Restoring Access Rules to Default Settings
    • Displaying Access Rule Traffic Statistics
  • Access Rule Configuration Examples
    • Enabling Ping
    • Blocking LAN Access for Specific Services
    • Allowing WAN Primary IP Access from the LAN Zone
• NAT Rules
  • About NAT in SonicOS
  • About NAT Load Balancing
    • Determining the NAT LB Method to Use
    • Caveats
    • How Load Balancing Algorithms are Applied
    • Sticky IP Algorithm Examples
      • Example One - Mapping to a Network
      • Example Two - Mapping to an IP Address Range
  • About NAT64
    • Use of Pref64::/n
  • About FQDN-based NAT
  • About Source MAC Address Override
  • Viewing NAT Policy Entries
    • Changing the Display
    • Filtering the Display
    • Displaying Information about Policies
  • Adding or Editing NAT or NAT64 Policies
  • Deleting NAT Policies
  • Creating NAT Rule Policies: Examples
    • Creating a One-to-One NAT Policy for Inbound Traffic
    • Creating a One-to-One NAT Policy for Outbound Traffic
    • Inbound Port Address Translation via One-to-One NAT Policy
    • Inbound Port Address Translation via WAN IP Address
    • Creating a Many-to-One NAT Policy
    • Creating a Many-to-Many NAT Policy
    • Creating a One-to-Many NAT Load Balancing Policy
    • Creating a NAT Load Balancing Policy for Two Web Servers
    • Creating a WAN-to-WAN Access Rule for a NAT64 Policy
    • DNS Doctoring
• Routing Rules
  • About Routing
    • About Metrics and Administrative Distance
      • About Metrics
      • About Administrative Distance
    • Route Advertisement
    • ECMP Routing
    • Policy-based Routing
    • Policy-based TOS Routing
    • PBR Metric-based Priority
    • Policy-based Routing and IPv6
    • OSPF and RIP Advanced Routing Services
      • About Routing Services
        • Protocol Type
        • Maximum Hops
        • Split-Horizon
        • Poison Reverse
        • Routing Table Updates
        • Subnet Sizes Supported
        • Autonomous System Topologies
      • OSPF Terms
    • Drop Tunnel Interface
    • App-based Routing
  • Rules and Policies > Routing Rules
    • Configuring Routing Rules
      • Adding Static Routes
      • Probe-Enabled Policy-based Routing Configuration
• Content Filter Rules
  • About Content Filtering Rules (CFS)
    • About Content Filter Rules
    • About UUIDs for CFS Policies
    • About Content Filter Objects
    • How CFS Works
  • Configuring CFS Policies
    • About the Content Filter Rule Table
      • Searching the Content Filter Rule Table
    • Adding a Content Filter Rule
    • Editing a Content Filter Rule
    • Deleting Content Filter Rules
• App Rules
  • About App Rules
    • What are App Rules?
      • About App Rules Policies
      • About App Rules Capabilities
    • Benefits of App Rules
    • How Does Application Control Work?
    • About App Rules Policy Creation
    • Licensing App Rules and App Control
    • Terminology
  • Rules and Policies > App Rules
    • Configuring an App Rules Policy
    • Using the App Rule Wizard
  • Verifying App Rules Configuration
    • Useful Tools
      • Wireshark
      • Hex Editor
  • App Rules Use Cases
    • Creating a Regular Expression in a Match Object
    • Policy-based Application Rules
    • Logging Application Signature-based Policies
    • Compliance Enforcement
    • Server Protection
    • Hosted Email Environments
    • Email Control
    • Web Browser Control
    • HTTP Post Control
    • Forbidden File Type Control
    • ActiveX Control
    • FTP Control
      • Blocking Outbound Proprietary Files Over FTP
      • Blocking Outbound UTF-8 / UTF-16 Encoded Files
      • Blocking FTP Commands
    • Bandwidth Management
    • Bypass DPI
    • Custom Signature
    • Reverse Shell Exploit Prevention
      • Generating the Network Activity
      • Capturing and Exporting the Payload to a Text File Using Wireshark
      • Creating a Match Object
      • Defining the Policy
• Endpoint Rules
• SonicWall Support
  • About This Document

Web Browser Control

You can also use App Rules to protect your Web servers from undesirable browsers. App Rules supplies match object types for Netscape, MSIE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. You can define a match object using one of these types, and reference it in a policy to block that browser.

You can also access browser version information by using an HTTP User Agent match object type. For example, older versions of various browsers can be susceptible to security problems. Using App Rules, you can create a policy that denies access by any problematic browser, such as Internet Explorer 9. You can also use negative matching to exclude all browsers except the one(s) you want. For example, you might want to allow Internet Explorer version 10 only, because of flaws in version 9, and because you have not yet tested version 11. To do this, you would use a network protocol analyzer such as Wireshark to determine the Web browser identifier for IEv6, which is “MSIE 10.” Then you could create a custom match object of type HTTP User Agent, with content “MSIE 10” and enable negative matching. Navigate to OBJECT | Match Objects to configure these settings.

You can use this match object in a policy to block browsers that are not MSIE 10. For information about using Wireshark to find a Web browser identifier, see Wireshark. For information about negative matching, see About Negative Matching.

Another example of a use case for controlling Web browser access is a small e-commerce site that is selling discounted goods that are salvaged from an overseas source. If the terms of their agreement with the supplier is that they cannot sell to citizens of the source nation, they could configure App Rules to block access by the in-country versions of the major Web browsers.

App Rules supports a predefined selection of well-known browsers, and you can add others as custom match objects. Browser blocking is based on the HTTP User Agent reported by the browser. Your custom match object must contain content specific enough to identify the browser without creating false positives. You can use Wireshark or another network protocol analyzer to obtain a unique signature for the desired browser.