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Installing GFI WebMonitor as a Plug-In for the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway

Author: Ricardo Carrasco Updated

Overview

This article provides details about installing GFI WebMonitor as a plug-in for the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG).

 

Information

Microsoft Forefront TMG is a web gateway solution designed to protect users from web-based threats. GFI WebMonitor can complement this functionality. When installed in this environment, GFI WebMonitor enables the administrator to monitor users web traffic in real-time.

GFI WebMonitor should be installed as a plug-in for the Microsoft Forefront TMG when you want to keep Microsoft Forefront TMG as firewall and proxy while using the web filtering functions of GFI WebMonitor.

With this setup, when users request a webpage or a download over the Internet, the incoming and outgoing traffic generated by the request is received by the Microsoft Forefront TMG, which in turn refers to GFI WebMonitor to use the filtering mechanisms to analyze the request. Once the filtering is complete, the traffic is reverted to the Microsoft Forefront TMG for routing.

Note: GFI WebMonitor can only be installed or updated as a plug-in for Microsoft Forefront TMG. The Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server is not supported.

When GFI WebMonitor is installed as a plug-in for Microsoft Forefront TMG, two new policies are created in the Web Access Policy and Firewall Policy nodes of TMG:

  • GFI WebMonitor - Allow access to localhost: used to capture internet traffic to be filtered.
  • GFI WebMonitor - Allow Internet access: used to allow updates for GFI WebMonitor.

The image below depicts firewall rules created in TMG.

1.png 

Note: It is recommended to keep these two policies with the highest priority to ensure that no other TMG policies interfere with GFI WebMonitor activity.

If you are having problems when downloading updates, check your firewall settings to ensure that exceptions for the URLs used for updates are in place. For further information please refer to the Firewall Settings section.

 

Upgrading from GFI WebMonitor 2013 for TMG

GFI WebMonitor 11 does not support a direct upgrade from GFI WebMonitor2013. You need to upgrade to GFI WebMonitor 10 first and then continue with the upgrade to GFI WebMonitor 11.

The complete upgrade process from GFI WebMonitor 2013 to version 11 has the following steps.

  1. Download and upgrade the 64-bit version of GFI WebMonitor 10.1 and follow the instructions provided in the Upgrading to GFI WebMonitor 10 article. Do not run the post-install wizard, but continue to the next step.
  2. Upgrade to GFI WebMonitor 11. For further information, please refer to Upgrading from GFI WebMonitor 10.
  3. Obtain the license key and continue with the post-install wizard. For further information, please refer to Using the Post-installation Configuration Wizard.