Data list from file

[aperia]

I cannot find any clear documentation on what exactly constitutes a data file list. I would like to keep a TXT file updated with a list of allowed sites instead of having a list within the 'What' section of Rule Properties. A long list of sites within the Rule Properties is cumbersome at best to manage. We've created a simple TXT file with a list of sites using carriage returns between each. Is this possible or are we misinterpreting the data list from file option?

[Aaron Koolen-Bourke]

Hi Aperia.

What you have done is correct. The file data list is a line based list of text items to be included in the list where you put each item on it's own line. You can end each line with CRLF, LF or just CR.

Modifying the file whilst WinGate is running is acceptable and WinGate will load the changed contents next time it attempts to access the list. The file can be in ANSI, UTF8 and UTF16 format and supports Byte Order Markers for UTF8 and UTF16 big and little endian.

Let us know how you get on.

Regards
Aaron

[aperia]

Thanks. Well, that is not what we are seeing. We have a rule set up with a long list of accepted domains. We took this list and created a TXT file. We then created a new rule pointing to this TXT file, but it does not work. To be more detailed, we excepted a users IP address from the current rule containing all the sites. We then applied the new rule with the TXT file list to that same users IP address, so he is excepted from the old rule and is the only user the new rule is applied to. This user cannot access any of the sites in the allowed data TXT list. If we manually add a domain directly into the rule (instead of its data list file) it works.

[Aaron Koolen-Bourke]

Hi Aperia. There is currently a slight difference in how datalists and explicit strings are handled, specifically to do with sub-domains and I'm guessing this is the problem you are facing.

When an explict domain is entered into the rule, for instance microsoft.com and "and sub-items" is checked, then browsing to www.microsoft.com or help.microsoft.com, or just microsoft.com will trigger the rule. However with datalists, the sub-item matching is ignored and therefore if you have microsoft.com in the data file list, but you browse to www.microsoft.com then the rule will NOT trigger.

I would consider this something we need to remedy on our end in an update, but for now you can do one of two things.

1) Also add *.domain.com to the file list if you want to capture all subdomains of the specified domain. You will need to enable "Pattern Matching" in the settings for that data list so that wildcards are parsed.
2) Add specific prefixes to the file list as desired, like help.domain.com or support.domain.com

So you should end up with a file like so:

microsoft.com
*.microsoft.com
facebook.com
*.facebook.com
etc

Now, you can simply enter *microsoft.com, but of course that would allow potentially unwanted sites like badmicrosoft.com to trigger the rule.

I will get this change for sub domains added to our next update.

Hope this helps.
Aaron

[aperia]

Thanks Aaron. I did get this working. I think our issue was due to not properly applying the rule. Thanks again and not having to add each domain with an additional wildcard would be a nice feature to have.