Can you use a URL directly in security policy?

[MarioMarquez]

I am trying to creat a basic security policy allowing ftp access to a list of url's.  I know that I could do URL filering & white list the urls & add the profile to the security policy but can you put a url directly in the destination address field?  I dont think you can but I could be wrong.

[Remo]

Hi @MarioMarquez

No, URLs cannot be used directly in the destination address field. But you can create a custom URL category with just the URL(s) you need and add this category directly to the policy (not by adding an URL filtering profile).

But anyway, it is not possible to use URL categories to filter FTP connections. Maybe FTPS connections as the firewall will extract the "URL" from the certificate, but not plaintext FTP connections.

[Remo]

@MarioMarquez

But in your case an FQDN object could be used to allow access to the FTP server. This object can be used directly in the destination address field.

[MarioMarquez]

I was able to use FQDN objects in the destination address field.  Thanks guys!

[Raido_Rattameister]

FQDN object will resolve URL to IP and firewall will permit traffic to this IP.

URL in Custom URL category will permit traffic to this specific URL.

If web server will run multiple websites then FQDN will permit access to all of them while Custom URL category will limit to this single website address.