A collection of domain names or IP addresses can be defined in a single group for use in email functions. For example, you can define a domain name group to establish domain-based delivery options, or you can define an IP address group for which Reputation Service, Real-time Blacklist (RBL), or directory attack prevention analysis is not performed. IP address groups can also be used for the email encryption functions. Domain groups are added and configured on the page Settings > Users > Domain Groups; IP groups are added and configured on the page Settings > Inbound/Outbound > IP Groups.

See Third-party encryption application for information about using the Encryption Gateway default IP address group. Default groups cannot be deleted.

The Protected Domain group should contain all the domains that an organization owns and needs the email system to protect. Message direction in the system is determined on the basis of an organization's protected domains:

Unless you entered a protected domain name in the Domain-based Route page of the First-time Configuration Wizard, the default Protected Domain group is empty after product installation. Domains may be added to or deleted from the Protected Domain group, the Protected Domain group itself cannot be deleted.

The email hybrid service uses the Protected Domain group during Forcepoint Email Security Hybrid Module registration to verify that the domains specified in its delivery routes are all from this group. The Protected Domain group should not be used to configure email delivery routes (on the page Settings > Inbound/Outbound > Mail Routing) if you need to define domain-based delivery routes via multiple SMTP servers. See User directory-based routes.

Like the Protected Domain group, the Trusted IP Addresses default group is empty after product installation. IP addresses may be added to or deleted from the Trusted IP Addresses group, but the Trusted IP Addresses group itself cannot be deleted. The Trusted IP Addresses group may include up to 1024 addresses.