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The XG Series hardware appliances will reach end-of-life (EOL) on March 31, 2025. Click here to see the XG to XGS migration documentation.

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Always use the following permalink when referencing this page. It will remain unchanged in future help versions.

https://docs.sophos.com/nsg/sophos-firewall/19.5/Help/en-us/webhelp/onlinehelp/index.html?contextId=web-categories-add

Add a category

To add a web category, do as follows:

  1. Go to Web > Categories and click Add.
  2. Enter a name.
  3. Select a classification.
  4. Select a traffic shaping policy.

  5. Select a configuration type.

    Setting Description
    Local

    Upload files including domains and keywords that are specific to your organization. Acceptable formats are .tar, .gz, .bz, .bz2, .csv and .txt. (Archive files must contain text files.)

    Maximum entries: 2000.

    If you import a file containing more than 2000 entries, only the first 2000 entries are imported.
    External URL database

    Use an external database of URLs that includes domains and keywords created by third-parties, for example, country-specific block lists.

    The number of entries in an external database is unlimited. However, the number of cached entries for URL categorization varies depending on the firewall appliance's RAM. Most appliances with more than 4 GB of RAM can cache up to 122,880 entries. You can find the exact number for your appliance in the /log/nSXLd.log file.

    The firewall checks for updates every 48 hours, and this can't be changed.

    Observe the following requirements:

    • For text files, you can only add one entry per line.
    • Entries can be domains, site paths, or query strings, for example, www.example.com, example.com/path, example.com/path?data=example.
    • Entries do not specify a protocol.

    Note

    Invalid URLs and keywords are discarded. Empty lines in a file are considered invalid.

  6. Specify domains and keywords.

    • For local configurations, click Choose file and select a file. Optionally, you can type a domain or keyword in the Search/Add text box and click Add Add button..
    • For external URL databases, type a URL in the Search/Add text box and click Add Add button.. URL databases that require authentication aren't supported.

    Note

    The firewall matches domains before it matches keywords in custom web categories.

  7. Specify the advanced settings:

    Setting Description
    Override default notification page Display the message specified to the user when a website is blocked as a result of the category instead of the default message.

  8. Click Save.