LED specifications

LED status codes

For more information about alarms, see About Alarm Levels.

About alarm levels

Minor, major, and critical alarms are defined based on IPMI, ATCA, and Telco standards for naming alarms.

• A minor alarm (also called an IPMI non-critical (NC) alarm) indicates a temperature or a power level outside of the normal operating range that is not considered a problem. In the case of a minor temperature alarm, the system could respond by increasing fan speed. A non-critical threshold can be an upper non-critical (UNC) threshold (for example, a high temperature or a high power level) or a lower non-critical (LNC) threshold (for example, a low power level). The LEDs do not indicate minor alarms since user intervention is not required.
• A major alarm (also called an IPMI critical or critical recoverable (CR) alarm) indicates that the system itself cannot correct the cause for the alarm and that intervention is required. For example, the cooling system cannot provide enough cooling to reduce the temperature. It could also mean that conditions (e.g. temperature) are approaching the outside limit of the allowed operating range. A critical threshold can also be an upper critical (UC) threshold (e.g. a high temperature or a high power level) or a lower critical (LC) threshold (e.g. a low power level).
• A critical alarm (also called an IPMI non-recoverable (NR) alarm) indicates detection of a temperature or power level that is outside of the allowed operating range and could potentially cause physical damage.

LED status codes for ports

FortiExplorer for iOS

FortiExplorer for iOS is a user-friendly application that helps you to quickly and easily configure, manage, and monitor

FortiGate appliances using an iOS device. FortiExplorer lets you rapidly provision, deploy, and monitor Security Fabric components including FortiGate, FortiWiFi, and FortiAP devices.

FortiExplorer for iOS requires iOS 9.3 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It is supported by FortiOS 5.6+ and is only available on the App Store for iOS devices.

Advanced features are available with the purchase of FortiExplorer Pro. Paid features include the ability to add more than two devices and the ability to download firmware images from FortiCare.

Up to six members can use this app with ‘Family Sharing’ enabled in the App Store.

Getting started with FortiExplorer

If your FortiGate is accessible on the wireless network, you can connect to it using FortiExplorer provided that your iOS device is on the same network (see Connecting FortiExplorer to a FortiGate via WiFi). Otherwise, you will need to physically connect your iOS device to the FortiGate using a USB cable.

Connecting FortiExplorer to a FortiGate via USB

For the purpose of this document, we assume that you are just getting started; you do not have access to the FortiGate over the wireless network, and the FortiGate is in its factory configuration.

1. Connect your iOS device to your FortiGate’s USB management port.If prompted on your iOS device, Trust this ‘computer’.
2. Open the FortiExplorer app and select your FortiGate from the list under USB Attached Device.
3. On the Login screen, select USB.
4. Enter the default Username (admin) and leave the Password field blank.
5. You can opt to Remember Password. Tap Done when you are ready.
6. FortiExplorer opens the FortiGate management interface to the Device Status page:
7. Go to Network > Interfaces and configure the WAN interface(s).In the example, the wan1 interface Address mode is set to DHCP by default. Set it to Manual and enter its Address, Netmask, and Default Gateway, and then Apply your changes.
8. (Optional) Configure Administrative Access to allow HTTP and HTTPS This will allow administrators to access the FortiGate GUI using a web browser.
9. Go to Network > Interfaces and configure the local network (internal) interface.Set the Address mode as before and configure Administrative Access if desired.
10. Configure a DHCP Server for the internal network subnet.
11. Return to the internal interface using the < button at the top of the screen.
12. Go to Network > Static Routes and configure the static route to the gateway.
13. Go to Policy & Objects > IPv4 Policy and edit the Internet access policy. As a best practice, provide a Name for the policy, enable the desired Security Profiles, and configure Logging Options. Select OK to finalize.

Running a Security Fabric Rating

The FortiGate is now configured in a very basic state. Once you’ve configured the other potential elements of your network, such as other Interfaces, Schedules, or Managed FortiAPs, it is recommended that you run a Security Fabric Rating to identify potential vulnerabilities and highlight best practices that could be used to improve your network’s overall security and performance.

Go to Security Fabric > Security Rating and follow the steps to determine a Security Score for the selected device (s). The results should identify issues ranging from Medium to Critical importance, and may provide recommended actions where possible.

Connecting FortiExplorer to a FortiGate via WiFi

If your FortiGate is accessible on the wireless network, you can connect to it using FortiExplorer provided that your iOS device is on the same network. Assuming this is the case:

1. Open the FortiExplorer app and select Add from the Devices
2. Enter the Host information and appropriate Username and Password If necessary, change the default Port number, and opt to Remember Password.
3. If the FortiGate device identity cannot be verified, click Connect at the prompt. FortiExplorer opens the FortiGate management interface to the Device Status

Upgrading to FortiExplorer Pro

Paid features provided with the purchase of FortiExplorer Pro include the ability to add more than two devices and the ability to download firmware images from FortiCare.

To upgrade to FortiExplorer Pro, open the FortiExplorer app, go to Settings and select Upgrade to FortiExplorer Pro. Follow the on-screen prompts.

Tips

Basic features and characteristics of the CLI environment provide support and ease of use for many CLI tasks.

Help

To display brief help during command entry, press the question mark (?) key.

• Press the question mark (?) key at the command prompt to display a list of the commands available and a description of each command.
• Type a word or part of a word, then press the question mark (?) key to display a list of valid word completions or subsequent words, and to display a description of each.

Shortcuts and key commands

Command abbreviation

You can abbreviate words in the command line to their smallest number of non-ambiguous characters.

For example, the command get system status could be abbreviated to g sy stat.

Adding and removing options from lists

When adding options to a list, such as a user group, using the set command will remove the previous configuration. For example, if you wish to add user D to a user group that already contains members A, B, and C, the command would need to be set member A B C D. If only set member D was used, then all former members would be removed from the group.

However, there are additional commands which can be used instead of set for changing options in a list.

Additional commands for lists

For example, unselect member A would remove member A from a group will all previous group members are retained.

Environment variables

The CLI supports the following environment variables. Variable names are case-sensitive.

Environment variables

For example, the FortiGate unit’s host name can be set to its serial number:

config system global set hostname $SerialNum

end

Special characters

The following special characters, also known as reserved characters, are not permitted in most CLI fields: <, >, (, ), #, ‘, and “. You may be able to enter special characters as part of a string’s value by using a special command, enclosing it in quotes, or preceding it with an escape sequence — in this case, a backslash ( \ ) character.

In other cases, different keystrokes are required to input a special character. If you need to enter ? as part of config, you first need to input CTRL-V. If you enter ? without first using CTRL-V, the question mark has a different meaning in the CLI; it will show available command options in that section.

For example, if you enter ? without CTRL-V:

edit “*.xe token line: Unmatched double quote.

If you enter ? with CTRL-V:

edit “*.xe?” new entry ‘*.xe?’ added

Entering special characters

Using grep to filter get and show command output

In many cases, the get and show (and diagnose) commands may produce a large amount of output. If you are looking for specific information in a large get or show command output, you can use the grep command to filter the output to only display what you are looking for. The grep command is based on the standard UNIX grep, used for searching text output based on regular expressions.

Use the following command to display the MAC address of the FortiGate unit internal interface:

get hardware nic internal | grep Current_HWaddr Current_HWaddr      00:09:0f:cb:c2:75

Use the following command to display all TCP sessions in the session list and include the session list line number in the output:

get system session list | grep -n tcp

Use the following command to display all lines in HTTP replacement message commands that contain URL (upper or lower case):

show system replacemsg http | grep -i url

There are three additional options that can be applied to grep:

• <num> After
• <num> Before
• <num> Context

The option -f is also available to support contextual output, in order to show the complete configuration. The following example shows the difference in output when -f option is used versus when it is not.

Using -f:

show | grep -f ldap-group1 config user group edit “ldap-group1” set member “pc40-LDAP”

next

end

config firewall policy edit 2 set srcintf “port31” set dstintf “port32”

set srcaddr “all” set action accept set identity-based enable set nat enable

config identity-based-policy edit 1 set schedule “always” set groups “ldap-group1”

set dstaddr “all”

set service “ALL”

next

end

next

end

Without using -f:

show | grep ldap-group1 edit “ldap-group1” set groups “ldap-group1”

Language support and regular expressions

Characters such as ñ, é, symbols, and ideographs are sometimes acceptable input. Support varies by the nature of the item being configured. CLI commands, objects, field names, and options must use their exact ASCII characters, but some items with arbitrary names or values may be input using your language of choice. To use other languages in those cases, you must use the correct encoding.

Input is stored using Unicode UTF-8 encoding but is not normalized from other encodings into UTF-8 before it is stored. If your input method encodes some characters differently than in UTF-8, your configured items may not display or operate as expected.

Regular expressions are especially impacted. Matching uses the UTF-8 character values. If you enter a regular expression using another encoding, or if an HTTP client sends a request in an encoding other than UTF-8, matches may not be what you expect.

For example, with Shift-JIS, backslashes ( \ ) could be inadvertently interpreted as the symbol for the Japanese yen ( ¥ ) and vice versa. A regular expression intended to match HTTP requests containing money values with a yen symbol therefore may not work it if the symbol is entered using the wrong encoding.

For best results, you should:

• use UTF-8 encoding, or
• use only the characters whose numerically encoded values are the same in UTF-8, such as the US-ASCII characters that are also encoded using the same values in ISO 8859-1, Windows code page 1252, Shift-JIS and other encodings, or l for regular expressions that must match HTTP requests, use the same encoding as your HTTP clients.

HTTP clients may send requests in encodings other than UTF-8. Encodings usually vary by the client’s operating system or input language. If you cannot predict the client’s encoding, you may only be able to match any parts of the request that are in English, because regardless of the encoding, the values for English characters tend to be encoded identically. For example, English words may be legible regardless of interpreting a web page as either ISO 8859-1 or as GB2312, whereas simplified Chinese characters might only be legible if the page is interpreted as GB2312.

If you configure your FortiGate unit using other encodings, you may need to switch language settings on your management computer, including for your web browser or Telnet/SSH client. For instructions on how to configure your management computer’s operating system language, locale, or input method, see its documentation.

If you choose to configure parts of the FortiGate unit using non-ASCII characters, verify that all systems interacting with the FortiGate unit also support the same encodings. You should also use the same encoding throughout the configuration if possible in order to avoid needing to switch the language settings of the GUI and your web browser or Telnet/SSH client while you work.

Similarly to input, your web browser or CLI client should normally interpret display output as encoded using UTF-8. If it does not, your configured items may not display correctly in the GUI or CLI. Exceptions include items such as regular expressions that you may have configured using other encodings in order to match the encoding of HTTP requests that the FortiGate unit receives.

To enter non-ASCII characters in the CLI console:

1. On your management computer, start your web browser and go to the URL for the FortiGate unit’s GUI.
2. Configure your web browser to interpret the page as UTF-8 encoded.
3. Log in to the FortiGate unit.
4. Open the CLI Console from the upper right-hand corner.
5. In the title bar of the CLI Console widget, click Edit (the pencil icon).
6. Enable Use external command input box and select OK.
7. The Command field appears below the usual input and display area of the CLI Console .
8. Type a command in this field and press Enter.

In the display area, the CLI Console widget displays your previous command interpreted into its character code equivalent, such as:

edit \743\601\613\743\601\652

and the command’s output.

To enter non-ASCII characters in a Telnet/SSH client

1. On your management computer, start your Telnet or SSH client.
2. Configure your Telnet or SSH client to send and receive characters using UTF-8 encoding.

Support for sending and receiving international characters varies by each Telnet/SSH client. Consult the documentation for your Telnet/SSH client.

3. Log in to the FortiGate unit.
4. At the command prompt, type your command and press Enter.

You may need to surround words that use encoded characters with single quotes ( ‘ ).

Depending on your Telnet/SSH client’s support for your language’s input methods and for sending international characters, you may need to interpret them into character codes before pressing Enter. For example, you might need to enter: edit ‘\743\601\613\743\601\652’

5. The CLI displays your previous command and its output.

Screen paging

You can configure the CLI to pause after displaying each page’s worth of text when displaying multiple pages of output.

When the display pauses, the last line displays –More–. You can then either:

l press the spacebar to display the next page. l type Q to truncate the output and return to the command prompt.

This may be useful when displaying lengthy output, such as the list of possible matching commands for command completion, or a long list of settings. Rather than scrolling through or possibly exceeding the buffer of your terminal emulator, you can simply display one page at a time.

To configure the CLI Console to pause display when the screen is full:

config system console set output more

end

Baud rate

You can change the default baud rate of the local console connection.

To change the baud rate enter the following commands:

config system console set baudrate {9600 | 19200 | 38400 | 57600 | 115200} end

Editing the configuration file on an external host

You can edit the FortiGate configuration on an external host by first backing up the configuration file to a TFTP server. Then edit the configuration file and restore it to the FortiGate unit.

Editing the configuration on an external host can be timesaving if you have many changes to make, especially if your plain text editor provides advanced features such as batch changes.

To edit the configuration on your computer:

1. Use execute backup to download the configuration file to a TFTP server, such as your management computer.
2. Edit the configuration file using a plain text editor that supports Unix-style line endings.

Do not edit the first line. The first line(s) of the configuration file (preceded by a # character) contains information about the firmware version and FortiGate model. If you change the model number, the FortiGate unit will reject the configuration file when you attempt to restore it.

3. Use execute restore to upload the modified configuration file back to your FortiGate.

The FortiGate downloads the configuration file and checks that the model information is correct. If it is correct, the

FortiGate unit loads the configuration file and checks each command for errors. If a command is invalid, the FortiGate unit ignores the command. If the configuration file is valid, the FortiGate unit restarts and loads the new configuration.

Permissions

Access profiles control which CLI commands an administrator account can access. Access profiles assign either read, write, or no access to each area of FortiOS. To view configurations, you must have read access. To make changes, you must have write access. So, depending on the account used to log in to the FortiGate, you may not have complete access to all CLI commands. For complete access to all commands, you must log in with an administrator account that has the super_admin access profile. By default the admin administrator account has the super_admin access profile.

Administrator accounts, with the super_admin access profile are similar to a root administrator account that always has full permission to view and change all FortiGate configuration options, including viewing and changing all other administrator accounts and including changing other administrator account passwords.

Increasing the security of administrator accounts

Set strong passwords for all administrator accounts (including the admin account) and change passwords regularly.

Command syntax

When entering a command, the CLI console requires that you use valid syntax and conform to expected input constraints. It will reject invalid commands.

Fortinet documentation uses the conventions below to describe valid command syntax.

Terminology

Each command line consists of a command word that is usually followed by configuration data or other specific item that the command uses or affects.

To describe the function of each word in the command line, especially if that nature has changed between firmware versions, Fortinet uses terms with the following definitions:

• Command — A word that begins the command line and indicates an action that the FortiGate should perform on a part of the configuration or host on the network, such as config or execute. Together with other words, such as fields or values, that end when you press the Enter key, it forms a command line. Exceptions include multiline command lines, which can be entered using an escape sequence. Valid command lines must be unambiguous if abbreviated. Optional words or other command line permutations are indicated by syntax notation.
• Sub-command — A config sub-command that is available only when nested within the scope of another command. After entering a command, its applicable sub-commands are available to you until you exit the scope of the command, or until you descend an additional level into another sub-command. Indentation is used to indicate levels of nested commands.Not all top-level commands have sub-commands. Available sub-commands vary by their containing scope.
• Object — A part of the configuration that contains tables and /or fields. Valid command lines must be specific enough to indicate an individual object.
• Table — A set of fields that is one of possibly multiple similar sets which each have a name or number, such as an administrator account, policy, or network interface. These named or numbered sets are sometimes referenced by other parts of the configuration that use them.
• Field — The name of a setting, such as ip or hostname. Fields in some tables must be configured with values. Failure to configure a required field will result in an invalid object configuration error message, and the FortiGate will discard the invalid table.
• Value — A number, letter, IP address, or other type of input that is usually your configuration setting held by a field. Some commands, however, require multiple input values which may not be named but are simply entered in sequential order in the same command line. Valid input types are indicated by constraint notation. l Option — A kind of value that must be one or more words from of a fixed set of options.

Indentation

Indentation indicates levels of nested commands, which indicate what other sub-commands are available from within the scope. The “next” and “end” lines are used to maintain a hierarchy and flow to CLI commands, especially helping to distinguish those commands with extensive sub-commands.

The “next” line is entered at the same indentation-level as the previous “edit”, to mark where you would like to finish that table entry and move on to the next table entry; doing so will not mean that you have “left” that sub-command.

next

Below is an example command, with a sub-command of entries:

After entering settings for <2> and entering next, the <2> table entry has been saved, and you be set back one level of indentation so you can continue to create more entries (if you wish).

This hierarchy is best indicated in the CLI console, as the example below is what displays in the console after entering

end

Below is the same command and sub-command, except end has been entered instead of next after the subcommand:

Entering end will save the <2> table entry, but bring you out of the sub-command entirely; in this example, you would enter this when you don’t wish to continue creating new entries.

Again, your hierarchy is best indicated by the CLI console. Below is what displays in the console after entering end:

Notation

Brackets, braces, and pipes are used to denote valid permutations of the syntax. Constraint notations, such as <address_ipv4>, indicate which data types or string patterns are acceptable value input.

All syntax uses the following conventions:

Optional values and ranges

Any field that is optional will use square-brackets, such as set comment. This is because it doesn’t matter whether it’s set or not. The overall config command will still successfully be taken.

Another example of where square-brackets would be used is to show that multiple options can be set, even intermixed with ranges. The example below shows a field that can be set to either a specific value or range, or multiple instances:

config firewall service custom

set iprange <range1> [<range2> <range3> …]

end

Sub-commands

Each command line consists of a command word that is usually followed by configuration data or other specific item that the command uses or affects:

get system admin

Sub-commands are available from within the scope of some commands. When you enter a sub-command level, the command prompt changes to indicate the name of the current command scope. For example, after entering:

config system admin

the command prompt becomes:

(admin)#

Applicable sub-commands are available to you until you exit the scope of the command, or until you descend an additional level into another sub-command.

For example, the edit sub-command is available only within a command that affects tables; the next sub-command is available only from within the edit sub-command:

config system interface edit port1 set status up

next

end

Sub-command scope is indicated by indentation.

Available sub-commands vary by command. From a command prompt within config, two types of sub-commands might become available:

l commands affecting fields l commands affecting tables

Commands for tables

Example of table commands

From within the system admin object, you might enter:

edit admin_1

The CLI acknowledges the new table, and changes the command prompt to show that you are now within the admin_1 table:

new entry ‘admin_1’ added

(admin_1)#

Commands for fields

Example of field commands

To assign the value my1stExamplePassword to the password field, enter the following command from within the admin_1 table:

set password my1stExamplePassword

Next, to save the changes and edit the next administrator’s table, enter the next command.

CLI-only features

As you can see in the Feature / Platform Matrix, the entry level models have a number of features that are only available using the CLI, rather than appearing in the GUI.

You can open the CLI console so that it automatically opens to the object you wish to configure. For example, to edit a firewall policy, right-click on the policy in the policy list (Policy & Objects > IPv4 Policy) and select Edit in CLI. The CLI console will appear, with the commands to access this part of the configuration added automatically.

Once you have access to the CLI, you can enter instructions for specific tasks that can be found throughout the FortiOS Handbook. Options are also available at the top of the CLI Console to Clear console, Download, and Copy to clipboard.

Refer to the CLI Reference for a list of the available commands.