Policy Server Guides › Policy Design Guide › Global Policies, Rules, and Responses › Global Policies › Global Policy Object Characteristics

Global Policy Object Characteristics

The following sections discuss the characteristics of global policy objects, outlining the basic similarities and differences when compared to their standard (non-global) counterparts.

Global response vs. standard response

Differences:

• Defined at the system level. Only system level administrators can define a global response.
• Cannot use variables-based attributes.
• Cannot be added to response groups. There are no global response groups.
• Associated with the specific agent type.

Similarities:

• Can use active expressions.
• Is not returned unless it is specified in a particular policy.

Global rule vs. standard rule

Differences:

• Defined at the system level. Only system level administrators can define a global rule.
• The filter for the global rule is not bound to a specific realm. The filter for the global rule is an absolute filter (that may or may not use a regular expression).
• Bound to specific agent or agent group. The agent is explicitly specified when the rule is created.
• Available only for SiteMinder (not RADIUS) agents.
• Only defined for an authentication or authorization event.
• Only used in global policies.
• Cannot be associated with Agents that do not support authentication and authorization events. For example, you cannot associate a global rule with a RADIUS Agent.
• Cannot be added to rule groups. There are no global rule groups.

Similarities:

• Can be a member of a global rule group. Global rules cannot participate in domain-specific rule groups.

Global policy vs. standard policy

Differences:

• Defined at the system level. Only system level administrators can define a global policy.
• Bound to all users. Specific users cannot be included or excluded from a global policy.

  Note: Individual domains can be explicitly enabled or disabled for global policy processing.

• Defined using only global rules, global responses and groups of these global objects.
• Cannot use variable-based attributes or variable expressions.
• Cannot contain allow/deny access rules. Only event rules may be included in a global policy.
• Cannot include or exclude a particular resource/realm from the global policy. The global policy is applicable to all resources that match at least one of the rule filters defined for the policy, on the domain for which global policy processing is enabled.
• Are not supported through the Java Policy Management API.

Similarities:

• Can use active expressions.
• Associated with the specific Agent. However, it’s possible to create a group containing all the Agents of the same type and bind a global rule to such group.
• When the global policy is being processed, the responses defined for the fired global rules, are added to the list of other responses. A global rule fires when the following is true:
• The resource being accessed matches the absolute resource filter defined for the global rule.
• The event that occurs is as defined for the global rule.
• The resource being requested is protected by the same agent/agent group, which was specified for the rule.
• The resource/realm being accessed belongs to a domain for which global policies processing is enabled.

More information:

Disable Global Policy Processing for a Domain