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Gateway Policies

In WSO2 API Manager, managing Global Level Policies within the gateway infrastructure is made easier. This streamlines policy handling, eliminating the need for administrators to manually create XML-type policy files. This feature facilitates a user-friendly approach to handling policies, eliminates the requirement for manual XML creation and placement in specific directories, and enhances control by providing a clear interface for creating, deploying, and undeploying policies, offering administrators better control over policy management.

Note

Policies added globally using the older approach: creating XML files following the naming pattern WSO2AM--Ext--<DIRECTION> and saving them in the <API-M_HOME>/repository/deployment/server/synapse-configs/default/sequences directory, will not be overridden by the global policies added through the UI. Policies applied via manual file addition will take precedence over the policies deployed through the UI.

Warning

The active global policy deployment on a specific gateway will apply to all the APIs deployed on that gateway. Similarly, this applies to tenants within multi tenanted setup. Global policies will be applied to all APIs belonging to a specific gateway corresponding to the logged-in tenant during the deployment of the global policy.

Step 1 - Create a gateway policy

Follow the instructions provided below to create a gateway policy:

  1. Sign in to the WSO2 API Publisher.

    https://<hostname>:9443/publisher

    Example: https://localhost:9443/publisher

    Info

    Although all managing actions can be performed by admin users with specific scopes, API creators and publishers can view the meta information of global policies such as names, descriptions, policy mappings, and deployed gateway labels.

  2. Select Global Policies in the left menu of the Publisher portal.

    The Create A New Global Policy page appears.

    Global policies startup

  3. Update the policy name and description, then simply drag and drop the desired policies onto the respective flows to attach them.

    Let's create a sample gateway policy mapping following the steps below:

    1. Navigate to the Request tab of the Policy List.
    2. Drag the Add Header policy and drop it into the Request Flow dropzone. This action triggers a side panel to appear on the right-hand side.

    3. Fill in the necessary details using the provided values below.

      Field Sample Value
      Header Name Foo
      Header Value Bar

    4. Finally, click Save to complete the process.

      Save individual policy data

      Note

      All the policies listed for addition as global policies are common policies.

    5. After saving the dropped policy, you should now be able to view the associated Add Header policy indicated by the initials AH.

    6. If you click on the recently attached AH (Add Header) policy, you'll still have access to view and edit the initially entered values.

    7. Let's proceed by adding several more policies to the existing Request Flow. Choose any number of policies from the Request tab within the Policy List.

      Add multiple common policies to a flow

      Note

      You can rearrange the dropped policies that are attached to each Flow.

  4. When you have finalized the dragged and dropped policies to your preference, proceed by clicking the Save button at the bottom of the page.

    Save global policy

Step 2 - Deploy a gateway policy

  • Upon the existence of at least one gateway policy, it will be displayed in the Global Policies tab.

    Global policy listing

  • Click on the expandable button at the beginning of the policy entry row to choose from available gateway labels for deploying the respective global policy.

    Note

    The selection will not display gateway labels that have active global policy deployments. This is because a particular gateway can have only one active global policy deployment at a time.

  • After selecting the required gateway labels, click the Deploy button. A confirmation dialog box will appear. Upon clicking the Deploy button within the dialog, the selected global policy will be deployed to the chosen gateway environments.

    Deploy global policy

To undeploy a global policy from any gateway environment, simply click on the cloud off button placed in front of each gateway label. Similarly, just as during deployment, an undeployment confirmation dialog box will prompt you for confirmation.

Undeploy gateway policy

See Also

You can engage policies with APIs and their resources:

Attaching API Policies