# Start the policy validation

You can validate the rules in the Policy Editing view or when you install or refresh the policy on an engine.

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In both cases, you can also select which issues are checked in the policy.

For more details about the product and how to configure features, click Help or press F1.

## Steps

1. Start the policy validation in one of the following ways:
   - If the policy is open in the Policy Editing view, select More actions > Validate.
   - If you are installing or refreshing a policy and the Task Properties dialog box is open, make sure that the Validate Policy before Upload option is selected, then click Select Settings.
2. (Optional, available in the Policy Editing view) Select the Target engine on which you want to install the policy to get more accurate results.
   - The Target engine selection is used to resolve Alias elements when a policy is validated.
   - If no Target engine is selected, all issues related to the engine configuration cannot be checked (for example, parts of the VPNs configuration).
3. (Optional) Edit the Validation Settings (the types of issues that are checked).
4. (Optional) Click Save as Default if you want to save the selected settings as the default set for future policy validations.
5. Click OK.

## Result

Any issues that are found are displayed in the Issues pane.

## Validate Policy dialog box

Use this dialog box to validate different kinds of policy elements (Alert Policy, Engine Policy, IPS Policy, Layer 2 Engine Policy, Inspection Policy, QoS Policy, File Filtering Policy, or Application Access Policy). The available options in the dialog box depend on the policy type.

Option | Definition
--- | ---
Validation Settings for Current Administrator | Specifies rule-specific settings for policy validation. Check All — Selects or deselects all options. General Checks — Finds combinations of general settings that are not valid. Check Configurations — Checks the rules in the policy and the engine configuration to find unsupported selections or information that is missing and required in your configuration. Invalid Settings — Finds rules that are ignored during policy upload because of missing or incorrect information. Missing Definitions — Finds fields that are always required but that are not filled in. Unsupported Definitions — Finds combinations of settings that are not valid and settings that are not supported by the currently installed software version.
Description of selected setting | Provides information about the selected validation setting.
Save as Default | Click to save the selected settings as the default set for future policy validations.