Learn from industry professionals who bring real-world experience and expertise into the classroom. This training provides practical guidance, hands-on exposure, and real-world insights to help you build confidence in FortiGate firewall administration.

DISCLAIMER:

This training material was independently developed and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sourced from Fortinet, Inc. It is intended for educational purposes only and is based on real-world scenarios, hands-on experience, and publicly available FortiGate knowledge.

We are not an authorized Fortinet Training Center, nor are we affiliated with Fortinet, Inc. in any official capacity. This content is not part of any Fortinet-approved curriculum and does not use or reproduce any proprietary Fortinet training material, lab manual, or certification content.

All product names, logos, and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are used strictly for identification and reference purposes.

 

Prerequisites

Participants are expected to have basic knowledge of networking and cybersecurity concepts before attending this training.

Recommended background:

• Basic TCP/IP networking concepts
• IP addressing and subnetting
• VLANs and routing fundamentals
• Firewall and NAT concepts
• Basic VPN concepts
• General cybersecurity awareness
• Familiarity with Windows or basic system administration

This training is ideal for IT support staff, network technicians, system administrators, cybersecurity beginners, and IT professionals who want to build practical FortiGate firewall administration skills.

Lab Equipment (Provided by Student)

• 1 x Laptop/Desktop with at least Core i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB Storage) with Windows 11 OS
• 1 x VirtualBox with Windows OS
• 2 x FortiGate VM Firewall
• 1 x Printed Lab Guide

Course Overview

Take your IT career in any direction by building practical FortiGate administration skills. This training covers a broad range of network security fundamentals, including firewall policies, NAT, routing, VPN, authentication, threat protection, logging, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Students will gain hands-on experience in configuring, securing, and managing FortiGate firewalls in real-world network security scenarios.

Course Topics

Module 1: Initial Setup & Administration

• Hardware Access, Initial Setup, and Lab Topology
• System, Interfaces, VLANs, and Administrator Settings

Module 2: Network Infrastructure

• Routing, Static Routes, ECMP, and Failover Verification

Module 3: Firewall Policies & Authentication

• Firewall Policies and NAT
• Firewall Authentication, LDAP, RADIUS, and User Groups
• Fortinet Single Sign-On (FSSO) and AD-Based Authentication

Module 4: Threat Protection & Content Security

• Certificate Operations and SSL/SSH Inspection
• Antivirus, Flow-Based and Proxy-Based Scanning
• Web Filtering, DNS Filtering, Video Filter, and Rating Overrides
• Application Control and Application Signatures
• Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and Attack Simulation

Module 5: Monitoring

• Logging and Monitoring

Hands-On Labs:

Lab 01: Hardware Access, Initial Setup, and Lab Topology

Students will access the FortiGate firewall, perform initial setup, and understand the lab topology.

Lab 02: System, Interfaces, VLANs, and Administrator Settings

Configure system settings, interfaces, VLANs, administrator access, and basic management options.

Lab 03: Routing, Static Routes, ECMP, and Failover Verification

Configure routing, static routes, ECMP, and verify basic failover behavior.

Lab 04: Firewall Policies and NAT

Create firewall policies, address objects, services, and NAT rules for controlled traffic flow.

Lab 05: Firewall Authentication and User Groups

Configure user authentication, user groups, and integration concepts for LDAP and RADIUS.

Lab 06: Fortinet Single Sign-On and AD-Based Authentication

Understand FSSO concepts and how FortiGate can use Active Directory-based authentication.

Lab 07: Certificate Operations and SSL/SSH Inspection

Work with certificates and understand SSL/SSH inspection behavior.

Lab 08: Antivirus, Flow-Based and Proxy-Based Scanning

Configure antivirus profiles and compare flow-based and proxy-based inspection.

Lab 09: Web Filtering, DNS Filtering, Video Filter, and Rating Overrides

Configure content filtering features including web filter, DNS filter, video filter, and rating overrides.

Lab 10: Application Control and Application Signatures

Configure application control profiles and review application signature behavior.

Lab 11: Intrusion Prevention System and Attack Simulation

Configure IPS profiles and observe security events from simulated attacks.

Lab 12: Logging and Monitoring

Analyze logs and monitor UTM security events.