Event management

WinGate is based on an event driven software model. This means that are large part of its functionality is based around responding to events that take place during WinGate operations. As such, it has a range of components that have been designed to respond to the occurrence of events throughout WinGate. With a centralized Events system, other WinGate components can register what events will occur during their operation, and make them available to the various event processing systems to respond to whenever they take place.

Services

• Network services

  As an Internet sharing application, WinGate offers a range of network services to assist with the network management of WinGate users, and application protocol specific proxy services. Each service is designed to listen and respond to client requests on a specified network connection.

  WinGate provides a DHCP Service for client IP address requirements, and a DNS service that can be installed to provide Internet DNS lookup capability for clients when there isn't one on the LAN.

  The WWW Proxy service is installed by default to provide handling and control of clients who use a proxy in their web browser. Other protocol specific network services can also be installed when required. This includes an FTP Proxy, POP3 Proxy, and a RTSP Proxy for streaming media applications that use the RTSP Protocol.

  WinGate also provides the SMTP server, so WinGate can receive mail for delivery. There are optional POP3 and IMAP4 servers that can be installed so that WinGate users can access their local WinGate mailboxes when required.

• Component services

  WinGate and loaded components can also install services when required to assist their operation. These can be stopped, started, and configured (when applicable).

All services, both component and network based, can be managed as required from the Services panel, located in the Control Panel of the WinGate Management console.

ENS

Data

The new Data system provides WinGate administrators with the ability to create global data objects, such as counters, lists, string, and boolean values that other WinGate components can access and modify when required. You can access these global data objects and their values within the appropriate WinGate configuration when you need. This could be referring to a string value for a predefined email address that should be used in a configuration, or checking the value of a counter that has been set to count the number of times a web site is requested.

The Data system also provides data monitoring on WinGate components and operating system performance counters. This lets you fine tune how WinGate operates, and how it should respond to events that are taking place within its operations. By monitoring selected WinGate data, or performance counters from the operating system where WinGate is installed, you can easily set thresholds for desirable operating conditions. If these exceed or fall below critical levels, WinGate can be configured to use its Notifications system to send notification emails to the relevant administrators.

To help mange all of these features, the Data system lets you configure a graphical dashboard of meters, switches, and indicators. Monitored data values can be displayed in a customized meter or LCD display, to let you see at a glance what the current values of selected data are currently sitting at. Similarly, components can be controlled by a switch on the Dashboard. Global data Boolean values can also be used for switches, which when referred to by other WinGate components, can determine their course of operation.

Policy system

WinGate provides a new policy system to control and respond to events as they take place in WinGate. This means that you can create policies which will be implemented whenever a selected event takes place.

Rather then provide a list of static options and filters for what should happen when the policy is processed, WinGate takes a more graphic approach. The content of each policy is built around a flow chart of steps that will be executed when the policy responds to the event. The Policy system provides tools in the form of evaluation and action type items to build each step. These policy items can be configured to check current data available in WinGate and determine which flow chart processing path it should follow, or simply perform an action such as stopping a service or sending an email.

Policies can be as simple or as complex as you require. You can use the events (made available by the proxy services) to build user access and activity policies around. This makes for a range of effective control points over client connections, when they attempt to access the Internet through WinGate.

User management

WinGate allows you to utilize a user database for the purpose of controlling user access to the Internet. You can choose from the built in WinGate user database, or you can utilize the operating system of the computer where WinGate is installed. When located in an Active Directory, WinGate allows you to utilize the domain user database if required.

All user database options in WinGate now support NTLM authentication. Users can be forced to authenticate themselves to WinGate, have their behavior monitored, and have restrictions placed on them when accessing the Internet through WinGate.

Permissions

WinGate now has a permissions system. Installed components can register which of their features, user interface dialogs etc. can be controlled by permissions (permission objects). You can then set appropriate permissions on a user or group basis for each permission object. This could be setting a permission for whether a user is able to access or configure a particular dialog, or giving them permissions to create a new item within a WinGate component, such as a certificate or dashboard.

Permissions help to determine what a user will see, have access to, and be able to do within the WinGate Management console.

WinGate Mail

WinGate Mail provides a host of mail services to WinGate. It can be configured to provide full mail server services for a particular domain, including the reception and delivery of mail for clients and the provision of mailboxes. It can be configured to accept mail for delivery based on domain rules, and address handlers, which instruct WinGate on how it should handle mail it receives that is destined for a specific address. It will also send mail on behalf of WinGate components when they have been configured to send an email as part of their operations.

With the optional purchase of the Kaspersky AntiVirus for WinGate plugin, WinGate Mail can be made to scan all email for viruses or malicious content before delivery.

Notifications

WinGate offers a comprehensive notifications system to alert someone to incidents as they occur in WinGate. You can set conditions in WinGate that will be considered to constitute an incident. When they eventuate, incidents can be reported to the Notifications system which will action a defined notification plan.

When you create a notification plan, you have to create a list of notification events that will be executed according to a timed schedule. Like other events in WinGate, these notification events are made available to the event processing system components so they can respond to them when they are executed as part of the notification plan. This lets you do a range of different things, such as create a notification email that will be sent by using the Send Mail event processor, or run a Lua script using the Lua Script event processor when a particular notification event is triggered as part of the plans schedule.

Timeline

The new Timeline system provides a graphical representation of users web activity, and the occurrence of certain system events over time. The details of a users web activity are recorded to a database so you can use the Timeline as an easy reference tool to their history or current activity when required.

Scheduled Events

Since WinGate is an event based application, you can create non-descript events that will take place according to a schedule you define. Like all events in WinGate, you can use the power of any of the event processing systems (Policy, Send Mail, Run Lua script, Run Javascript) to configure what will happen whenever the event takes place as part of its schedule. This makes ideal for the scheduling of tasks in WinGate.

WinGate script systems

WinGate utilizes the power of the Lua and Javascript languages, to provide several scripting systems for the management of WinGate. It provides the Run Lua and Run Javascript Script event processors, where you can configure a script that should be run whenever a selected event takes place in WinGate. These scripts can evaluate current WinGate data (through WinGate objects) and perform a wide range of tasks based on these current conditions.

WinGate also provides Lua and Javascript policy items inside its Policy system. This allows you to have the policy execute a given script if required whenever the policy is processed, and conditions reach the script policy item.

WinGate objects

WinGate and its components can make available a wide variety of registered objects, which can provide data and perform functions when you are administering WinGate. Within certain component configurations, you can access these objects and utilize their capabilities and the data they provide for the WinGate component you are configuring. This could be having a policy evaluate a piece of data related to an event, or accessing an object method by referencing it when using a WinGate script system.

Registered objects will always provide the most up to date data possible, providing you with huge resource when configuring and fine tuning WinGate components.

Logging

The Logging system in WinGate allows you to have a wide range of diagnostic sources provide information to their own log file if required. Components and services can be made to contribute a certain level of information to other log files if needed, allowing you to create log files with only the information you require.

Logging sources can also provide usage type information (traffic) to its own usage log if required. These customizable usage logs are created in a W3C compliant format which allows them to be read by a 3rd party W3C log analyzer application if needed.

With an easy to use logging viewer and comprehensive search capabilities, the Logging system allows you to view and analyze log files effortlessly from inside the WinGate Management console.

WinGate provides the Web Access Control system so you can control user access to particular web sites and URLs. When a user makes a request to a URL or web site through the WWW Proxy Server, the URLs and web sites are classified into particular content categories. Access rules can be then be created based around these categories on an allow, deny or "force authentication" basis.

HTTP Cache

WinGate has a new HTTP Cache to provide for storage and retrieval of commonly requested HTTP files by WinGate clients. This provides much quicker processing times for cache requests than performing a search on the HTTP Cache volume itself.

For easy management of the cache, you can create multiple volumes on local or UNC drives and manage their storage independently. The HTTP Cache also allows you to use specify cache rules to control how an what resources are cached.

WinGate 8: WinGate 8 uses a new, proprietary cache index system that provides several times the performance of WinGate 7's database cache.

WinGate 7: WinGate 7 uses a database to store the cache index. By default it will use a MS Access database but you can configure WinGate to use any database that supports ODBC.

WinGate Update

WinGate now has a dynamic update system to ensure you have the latest WinGate updates possible when you need them. With an array of different update options, the WinGate Update system can be scheduled to check and perform updates on all the modules and components that are currently installed. This check can also include any optional products that are suitable for your WinGate installation (e.g. Plugins such as Kaspersky AntiVirus for WinGate and PureSight for WinGate (Content filtering).