HTTP policies

HTTP policies allow you to intercept all HTTP and HTTPS requests and either block, allow, or override specific elements such as websites, IP addresses, and file types. HTTP policies operate on Layer 7 for all TCP (and optionally UDP) traffic sent over ports 80 and 443.

An HTTP policy consists of an Action as well as a logical expression that determines the scope of the policy. To build an expression, you need to choose a Selector and an Operator, and enter a value or range of values in the Value field. You can use And and Or logical operators to evaluate multiple conditions.

• Actions
• Selectors
• Comparison operators
• Value
• Logical operators

​​ Actions

Actions in HTTP policies allow you to choose what to do with a given set of elements (domains, IP addresses, file types, and so on). You can assign one action per policy.

​​ Allow

API value: allow

The Allow action allows outbound traffic to reach destinations you specify within the Selectors and Value fields. For example, the following configuration allows traffic to reach all websites we categorize as belonging to the Education content category:

​​ Untrusted certificates

The Untrusted certificate action determines how to handle insecure requests.

​​ Block

API value: block

The Block action blocks outbound traffic from reaching destinations you specify within the Selectors and Value fields. For example, the following configuration blocks users from being able to upload any file type to Google Drive:

Turn on Display block notification for WARP client to display notifications for Gateway block events. Blocked users will receive an operating system notification from the WARP client with a custom message you set. If you do not set a custom message, the WARP client will display a default message. Custom messages must be 100 characters or less.

Upon selecting the notification, WARP will direct your users to a block page. Optionally, you can direct users to a custom URL, such as an internal support form.

To turn on client notifications on macOS devices running DisplayLink software, you may have to allow system notifications when mirroring your display. For more information, refer to the macOS documentation Open external link .

​​ Isolate

API value: isolate

The Isolate action serves matched traffic to users via Cloudflare Browser Isolation. For more information on this action, refer to Isolation policies.

​​ Do Not Isolate

API value: noisolate

The Do Not Isolate action turns off browser isolation for matched traffic. For more information on this action, refer to Isolation policies.

​​ Do Not Inspect

API value: off

Do Not Inspect lets you bypass certain elements from inspection. To prevent Gateway from decrypting and inspecting HTTPS traffic, your policy must match against the Server Name Indicator (SNI) in the TLS header. For more information about applications which may require a Do Not Inspect policy, refer to TLS decryption limitations.

All Do Not Inspect rules are evaluated first, before any Allow or Block rules, to determine if decryption should occur. For more information, refer to Order of enforcement.

​​ Do Not Scan

API value: noscan

When an admin enables AV scanning for uploads and/or downloads, Gateway will scan every supported file. Admins can selectively choose to disable scanning by leveraging the HTTP rules. For example, to prevent AV scanning of files uploaded to or downloaded from example.com, an admin would configure the following rule:

When a Do Not Scan rule matches, nothing is scanned, regardless of file size or whether the file type is supported or not.

​​ Selectors

Gateway matches HTTP traffic against the following selectors, or criteria:

​​ Application

You can apply HTTP policies to a growing list of popular web applications. Refer to Application and app types for more information.

​​ Content Categories

For more information, refer to our list of content categories.

​​ Destination Continent

The continent where the request is destined. Geolocation is determined from the target IP address. To specify a continent, enter its two-letter code into the Value field:

• AF – Africa
• AN – Antarctica
• AS – Asia
• EU – Europe
• NA – North America
• OC – Oceania
• SA – South America
• T1 – Tor network

​​ Destination Country

The country that the request is destined for. Geolocation is determined from the target IP address. To specify a country, enter its ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 code Open external link in the Value field.

​​ Destination IP

​​ Device Posture

With the Device Posture selector, admins can use signals from end-user devices to secure access to their internal and external resources. For example, a security admin can choose to limit all access to internal applications based on whether specific software is installed on a device and/or if the device or software are configured in a particular way.

For more information on device posture checks, refer to Device posture.

​​ Domain

Use this selector to match against a domain and all subdomains — for example, if you want to block example.com and subdomains such as www.example.com.

​​ Download and Upload File Types

These selectors will scan file signatures in the HTTP body. You can select from file categories or specific file types, including executables, archives and compressed files, Microsoft 365/Office documents, and Adobe files.

​​ Download and Upload Mime Type

These selectors depend on the Content-Type header being present in the request (for uploads) or response (for downloads).

​​ DLP Profile

Scans HTTP traffic for the presence of social security numbers and other PII. You must configure the DLP Profile before you can use this selector in your policy. For more information, refer to our DLP Profile documentation.

​​ Host

Use this selector to match only the hostname specified — for example, if you want to block test.example.com but not example.com or www.test.example.com.

​​ HTTP Method

​​ HTTP Response

​​ Proxy Endpoint

The proxy server where your browser forwards HTTP traffic.

​​ Security Risks

For more information, refer to our list of security categories.

​​ Source Continent

The continent of the user making the request.

Geolocation is determined from the device’s public IP address (typically assigned by the user’s ISP). To specify a continent, enter its two-letter code into the Value field:

​​ Source Country

The country of the user making the request.

Geolocation is determined from the device’s public IP address (typically assigned by the user’s ISP). To specify a country, enter its ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code Open external link in the Value field.

​​ Source Internal IP

Use this selector to apply HTTP policies to a private IP address, assigned by a user’s local network, that requests arrive to Gateway from. This selector will only apply to users connected through a Magic GRE or IPSec tunnel.

​​ Source IP

​​ URL

​​ URL Path

​​ URL Path and Query

​​ URL Query

​​ Users

Identity-based selectors include:

• SAML Attributes
• User Email
• User Group Emails
• User Group IDs
• User Group Names
• User Name

To use identity-based selectors, enable Gateway with WARP in the Zero Trust WARP client and enroll your user in your organization. For more information, refer to Identity-based policies.

​​ Virtual Network

Use this selector to match all traffic routed through a specific Tunnel Virtual Network via the WARP client.

​​ Comparison operators

Comparison operators are the way Gateway matches traffic to a selector. When you choose a Selector in the dashboard policy builder, the Operator dropdown menu will display the available options for that selector.

​​ Value

You can input a single value or use regular expressions to specify a range of values.

Gateway uses Rust to evaluate regular expressions. The Rust implementation is slightly different than regex libraries used elsewhere. For more information, refer to our guide for Wildcards.

For example, if you want to match multiple domains, you could use the pipe symbol (|) as an OR operator. In Gateway, you do not need to use an escape character (\) before the pipe symbol. The following configuration blocks requests to two hosts if either appears in a request header:

To evaluate if your regex matches, you can use Rustexp Open external link .

​​ Logical operators

To evaluate multiple conditions in an expression, select the And logical operator. These expressions can be compared further with the Or logical operator.

The Or operator will only work with conditions in the same expression group. For example, you cannot compare conditions in Traffic with conditions in Identity or Device Posture.