Reducing network traffic with the built-in relay feature (cache proxy)

Emsisoft Management Console is designed to help owners of multiple Emsisoft-protected devices reduce unnecessary Internet traffic.

Background:

Emsisoft’s protection software automatically updates every hour to make sure that all malware detection patterns are kept up to date to combat the latest threats. When doing online updates, the software only downloads the data that’s missing on your particular device. With the combination of differential and incremental update techniques, the overall required Internet traffic averages out to about 20-30 MB per day.

While that might not sound like much, it adds up throughout the month, especially if you’re on a limited data plan, connected through expensive mobile (4G/5G) networks or operate a large number of devices that all need to be updated regularly.

To reduce the required total update traffic, we’ve built a new feature that allows you to define one (or more) Emsisoft-protected devices that act as a relay/cache-proxy for all traffic to and from the Emsisoft servers.

All data that has been downloaded once will be cached locally to avoid unnecessary duplicate downloads. If you have a local network (no matter if you have 3 devices at home or 500+ in a corporate environment) you can save a significant amount of unnecessary traffic by using that relay feature. For example, in a network with 10 devices, the overall traffic could potentially be reduced to as much as one-tenth of the original volume.

Benefits of the Emsisoft Relay Feature

• Caching: With a relay in place, each file is only transferred once and then provided to the other devices from the local cache.
• Speed: Online updates are accelerated, especially when using slower Internet connections.
• Bandwidth: In larger networks, uplink congestion in the mornings (when many devices get online at the same time) can be avoided.
• Firewall compatible: Only the relay device needs to be able to access the Internet, or, in particular, the Emsisoft servers. Other local devices can stay ‘offline’ behind your network firewall, but still get Emsisoft updates.
• Proxy protection: The Emsisoft relay only lets data to Emsisoft servers through and can’t be used to bypass firewalls or proxies for accessing the Internet.
• Update devices while on Network Lockdown: If you have isolated a device through a ‘Network Lockdown’, that device can still receive the necessary virus definitions, safely, through the relay device.

How to enable a traffic relay

The relay feature can be enabled for individual devices in your Emsisoft Management Console workspace.

1. Log in at MyEmsisoft, navigate to your workspace and select the device that you wish to act as a relay. Go to the Workspace, click on the device you want to become your traffic relay and simply switch to “ON” the button for traffic relay.
   

   Enable Relay on the target device

2. Navigate up to the ‘Protection Policies’ in your workspace, select a policy group that contains your other devices and go to the ‘Traffic relay’ setting in the right top. Select the previously defined relay device from the dropdown box.
   

   Select the relay device in Protection Policy

That’s all you need to do. All devices in that policy group will connect to your relay from now on. If the relay is not available for any reason (e.g. when you use that device while traveling or when it’s shut down) the other devices will try to connect to the Emsisoft servers directly or via their local proxy settings (if any).

You can verify the use of the relay either locally in the protection software or in the Management Console on device level.

Emsisoft Anti-Malware -> Settings -> Remote management

MyEmsisoft -> Workspace -> Device