Using an alternate block page on another machine

Instead of using the default block pages and customizing just the message in the top frame, you can create your own HTML block pages and host them on an internal web server.

Note: It is possible to store block pages on an external web server. If, however, that server hosts a site listed in the Forcepoint URL Database, and that site is in a blocked category, the block page itself is blocked.

Some organizations use alternate, remote block pages to hide the identity of the web protection server machine.

The remote block page can be any HTML file; it does not need to follow the format of the default block pages. Using this method to create block pages, however, does prevent you from using the Continue, Use Quota Time, and Password Override functions available with the pre-defined block pages (default or custom).

When the files are in place, edit the eimserver.ini file to point to the new block page.

When the services have started, users receive the block page hosted on the alternate machine.

Steps

  1. Stop the Filtering Service and Policy Server services, in that order (see Stopping and starting web protection services).
  2. On the Filtering Service machine, navigate to the bin directory (C:\Program Files\ Websense\Web Security\bin or /opt/Websense/bin/, by default).
  3. Create a backup copy of the eimserver.ini file and store it in another directory.
  4. Open eimserver.ini file in a text editor, and locate the [WebsenseServer] section (at the top of the file).
  5. Enter either the hostname or the IP address of the server hosting the block page in the following format:
    UserDefinedBlockPage=http://<hostname or IP address>

    The protocol portion of the URL (http://) is required.

  6. Save the file and close the text editor.
  7. Restart the Policy Server and Filtering Service, in that order.