Users and user groups

Monitoring users

To monitor user activity in the web-based manager, go to Monitor > Firewall User Monitor. The list of users who are logged on is displayed with some information about them such as their user group, security policy ID, how long they have been logged on, their IP address, traffic volume, and their authentication method as one of FSSO, NTLM, or firewall (FW-auth).

From this screen you can de-authenticate all users who are logged on. The de-authenticate button is at the top left of this screen.

To see information about banned users go to Monitor > Quarantine Monitor. Displayed information about users who have been banned includes what application the triggered the ban (Application Protocol), the reason for the ban (Cause or rule), Created, and when the ban expires.

Filtering the list of users

When there are many users logged on, it can be difficult to locate a specific user or multiple users to analyze. Applying filters to the list allows you to organize the user list to meet your needs, or only display some the users that meet your current requirements.

Select settings bottom at the top right of the screen to adjust columns that are displayed for users, including what order they are displayed in. This can be very helpful in locating information you are looking for.

Each column heading has a grey filter icon. Click on the filter icon to configure a filter for the data displayed in that column. Each column has similar options including a field to enter the filtering information, a check box to select the negative of the text in the field, and the options to add more fields, apply the filter, clear all filters, or cancel without saving. To enter multiple terms in the field, separate each of them with a comma. To filter entries that contain a specific prefix, use an * (asterisk).

For example, to create a filter to display only users with an IP address of 10.11.101.x who authenticated using one of security policies five through eight, and who belong to the user group Accounting.

  1. Go to Monitor > Quarantine Monitor.
  2. Enter 11.101.* and select Apply.
  3. Select the filter icon beside Policy ID.
  4. Enter 5-8 and select Apply.
  5. Select the filter icon beside User Group.
  6. Enter Accounting and select Apply.
This entry was posted in FortiGate, FortiOS 5.6 on by .

About Mike

Michael Pruett, CISSP has a wide range of cyber-security and network engineering expertise. The plethora of vendors that resell hardware but have zero engineering knowledge resulting in the wrong hardware or configuration being deployed is a major pet peeve of Michael's. This site was started in an effort to spread information while providing the option of quality consulting services at a much lower price than Fortinet Professional Services. Owns PacketLlama.Com (Fortinet Hardware Sales) and Office Of The CISO, LLC (Cybersecurity consulting firm).

One thought on “Users and user groups

  1. Anabella Cristaldi

    Hi Mike, One question: if I have LDAP Users and a remote Radius Group which will check first given an username and password? I’m not able to see If the order is defined somewhere
    Thank you

    Reply

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