Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Imagine you're standing before this vast,
Speaker 1: complex digital fortress, right and you've been handed the sort
Speaker 1: of secret language to command it, not with you know,
Speaker 1: flashy graphics or easy buttons, but with these precise, almost
Speaker 1: surgical text instructions. Today we're diving deep into the very
Speaker 1: heart of network control, the forty OS seven point four
Speaker 1: point zero command line interface, the CLI. We've been digging
Speaker 1: through this huge reference guide for all these commands, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it's a real gold mine of information.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and our mission for you today isn't just to
Speaker 2: rattle off every single command line by line. That wouldn't
Speaker 2: be very helpful. Instead, we want to pull out those
Speaker 2: crucial nuggets of insight. We'll explore what this really detailed
Speaker 2: control actually means for your network security, for management. Think
Speaker 2: of it as uncovering the maybe surprising capabilities hidden inside
Speaker 2: what looks like a pretty dense technical manual showing you
Speaker 2: how you can command your network with well incredible precisions.
Speaker 1: Okay, so at its core, then what is this CLS
Speaker 1: seven point four point zero. Why is it so so fundamental,
Speaker 1: especially for managing a forty gate?
Speaker 2: Well, it's basically your direct conversation with the forty Gate
Speaker 2: unit itself. You know, Fortinite's network security appliance, the kind
Speaker 2: of brain of your network defense. The CLI lets you
Speaker 2: configure and manage the device right down at the foundational level.
Speaker 2: And what's really fascinating, I think is that the CLI syntax,
Speaker 2: the language itself, it's generated directly from the forty Gate
Speaker 2: models running the forty US seven point four point zero schema.
Speaker 2: It's an internal blueprint the KEEMA. Yeah, so it's like
Speaker 2: you're speaking the device's native language. It gives you this
Speaker 2: this unparalleled level of control.
Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly powerful. But does every single forty Gate
Speaker 1: unit understand every command you might type in? Or do
Speaker 1: you just have to sort of guess?
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a great question, and no, not really not.
Speaker 2: All commands and options are universally available across all models. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, configuring a hardware switch, that's only possible if
Speaker 2: your specific forty Gate model actually has the heart where
Speaker 2: switched chip set installed.
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you try an unavailable command, the CLI
Speaker 2: will just tell you you'll get an error message right away.
Speaker 2: But you're definitely not left guessing. You can use a
Speaker 2: simple question mark just to check the available commands right
Speaker 2: where you are on the hierarchy. Oh handy very Or
Speaker 2: you can type tree to get a full view of
Speaker 2: all commands, which can be well, a bit overwhelming sometimes
Speaker 2: but really useful for discovery. You can even narrow it
Speaker 2: down like typing tree system just for system stuff, or
Speaker 2: tree diagnose and tree execute for those specific types of commands.
Speaker 2: The key thing is understanding what your specific forty gate
Speaker 2: model can do and then knowing how to ask it,
Speaker 2: how to query it directly to unlock all its power.
Speaker 1: Okay, so with this direct line of communications setup, how
Speaker 1: does fortos help you defend your network against well, everything
Speaker 1: that's out there today. The threats are always changing. Let's
Speaker 1: maybe start with proactively shutting down dangers, right.
Speaker 2: Proactive defense. So when we look at the config antivirus
Speaker 2: profile command, the real insight isn't just about basic virus scanning.
Speaker 2: It's the incredible granularity you get beyond just enabling av scan.
Speaker 2: You can configure services like outbreak prevention, integrate with external
Speaker 2: block list services, use fort and agent for network detection
Speaker 2: and response, even tap into ford a sandbox for really
Speaker 2: advanced threat analysis in the cloud. This isn't just about
Speaker 2: blocking known viruses anymore. It's about building this multi layered
Speaker 2: adaptive defense strategy.
Speaker 1: Okay, now here's something that really caught my eye. Content
Speaker 1: disarm and reconstruction or CDR. You mentioned it's not just
Speaker 1: blocking a file, it's actively sanitizing it. What kind of
Speaker 1: dangers can it strip away? What's the big idea there?
Speaker 2: Exactly? That's the profound insight with CDR. It shits your
Speaker 2: defense from just detection and blocking to active intelligent neutralization. So,
Speaker 2: for example, inside an anti virus profile for its HTTP traffic,
Speaker 2: you can enable content disarm. This lets the fortigate literally
Speaker 2: go inside the file and neutralize embedded threats by stripping
Speaker 2: out potentially malicious bits like what specifically, Well, it can
Speaker 2: disable things like PowerPoint action events and office docs, or
Speaker 2: JavaScript code hidden in PDF documents, even PDF actions that
Speaker 2: might try to launch other programs or run scripts. It's
Speaker 2: quite clever. The real takeaway is it goes beyond just
Speaker 2: stopping a suspicious file. It actually modifies the content to
Speaker 2: make it safe, so you get the information you need,
Speaker 2: just without the hidden dangers.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can disarm files literally take the sting out.
Speaker 1: But what about just controlling the types of files allowed
Speaker 1: in or out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it canfig file filter profile comes in.
Speaker 2: It gives you another really impressive layer of control. You
Speaker 2: can set up rules to manage file transfers across a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of protocols HTTP, FTP, SMTP, even SSH and others.
Speaker 2: You can specify if a rule applies to incoming files,
Speaker 2: outgoing files, or just any direction. And here's a neat detail.
Speaker 2: You can configure rules to specifically match password protected files.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting because those often get used to hide things.
Speaker 2: Right exactly common devas tactic. Or you can just filter
Speaker 2: any file type so you get really fine tuned control
Speaker 2: over what kinds of data can cross your network boundary.
Speaker 1: That covers what comes in, but protecting sensitive info leaving
Speaker 1: the network. That's huge for businesses. How does data loss
Speaker 1: prevention fit in with the cli DLP?
Speaker 2: For that, you'd look under config DLP. This features all
Speaker 2: about protecting your sensitive data, your intellectual property. You can
Speaker 2: define custom data type entries using things like regular expressions,
Speaker 2: so you can create really specific patterns for say, credit
Speaker 2: card numbers or maybe internal project codes. Very specific YEP,
Speaker 2: and the config DLP editionary lets you build lists of
Speaker 2: specific words or phrases to look for with smart options
Speaker 2: like ignore case so you catch variations.
Speaker 1: But the real power in DLP, as I understand it,
Speaker 1: is the finger printing That sounds like it takes precision
Speaker 1: to a whole new level. How does that work? What's
Speaker 1: the fundamental shift.
Speaker 2: It offers precisely DLP fingerprinting. The config DLP fp doc
Speaker 2: source command is where this really shines. It lets you
Speaker 2: create a DLP fingerprint database by having the fortigate actually
Speaker 2: go out and access a file server directly. It scans
Speaker 2: the files on that server. You tell it which one's
Speaker 2: using a file pattern, maybe with wildcards like the order,
Speaker 2: and then it creates this unique digital fingerprint for each
Speaker 2: sensitive file. You can schedule this scanning daily, weekly, monthly,
Speaker 2: or maybe just once its startup. Now the really profound
Speaker 2: insight here, the shift it represents is moving DLP from
Speaker 2: being a broad, sometimes inaccurate keyword.
Speaker 1: Search right lots of false positives, sometimes.
Speaker 2: Exactly moving from that to a highly accurate content aware defense.
Speaker 2: It knows the exact file content it needs to protect.
Speaker 2: This allows organizations to protect IP and sensitive data with
Speaker 2: almost surgical precision. It drastically cuts down on those false
Speaker 2: positives and ensures real data integrity. It's also smart about
Speaker 2: managing the fingerprint database. Options like keep modified mean if
Speaker 2: a file changes, the old fingerprint is kept alongside the
Speaker 2: new one, giving you a history.
Speaker 1: Oh that's useful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and move the lead. It keeps it tidy. You
Speaker 2: can even configure how it handles hating its maxim size,
Speaker 2: whether it should stop adding or remove modified than oldest
Speaker 2: or just remove oldest. It's incredibly sophisticated.
Speaker 1: That sounds extremely powerful for preventing data leaks. Are there
Speaker 1: any common maybe pitfalls or unexpected benefits people find when
Speaker 1: they implement something like this.
Speaker 2: Well, a common pitfall can be the initial setup time.
Speaker 2: You really have to carefully identify your sensitive data sources first.
Speaker 2: That takes effort, But the unexpected benefit often it's a
Speaker 2: huge reduction in false positives compared to traditional DLP methods.
Speaker 2: That means less alert fatigue for your security teams ye,
Speaker 2: and a much clearer view of the actual data risks.
Speaker 2: It really focuses you on proven leakage attempts, not just
Speaker 2: potential ones.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense, less noise, more signal exactly, so
Speaker 1: we've seen you can control what files come and go
Speaker 1: even disarm them. But a real fortress also controls who
Speaker 1: gets in and where they can go. How do the
Speaker 1: CLI commands help define access and traffic flow?
Speaker 2: Right? That's absolutely critical, and the config firewall policy commands
Speaker 2: are really the backbone of all your network traffic control.
Speaker 2: Think of each policy as a rule in your rule book.
Speaker 2: It specifies an action, should this traffic be accepted, denied,
Speaker 2: or maybe directed into an IPsec VPN tunnel for secure communication.
Speaker 2: And what's key is that you can layer on a
Speaker 2: whole suite of security profiles onto any traffic that matches
Speaker 2: a policy. Antivirus, application control, DLP, web filtering, IPS.
Speaker 1: All the tools we've been talking about pretty much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you apply them right there in the policy. You
Speaker 2: can even set a policy expiring time for temporary access,
Speaker 2: or mark specific traffic as captive portal exempt if it
Speaker 2: shouldn't need to log in. It's about crafting incredibly precise
Speaker 2: rules for every single data flow.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the flow. What about authentication itself? Verifying users?
Speaker 2: Good point. The configure authentication commands give you really robust
Speaker 2: control over identity. You can define authentication rules that apply
Speaker 2: to specific protocols, maybe just HTTP or FTP, and you
Speaker 2: can choose if authentication is it based, meaning you know,
Speaker 2: once one user from an IP authenticates, others from that
Speaker 2: same IP are let.
Speaker 1: Through for a while presumably yeah, usually.
Speaker 2: For a session or time period. Or if it's transaction based,
Speaker 2: meaning every new connection needs fresh authentication. Then within authentication
Speaker 2: schemes you've got a ton of methods, traditional ones like
Speaker 2: NTLM basic digest, but also more modern centralized options like FSSO, FORTINEX,
Speaker 2: single sign on or RSSO for Radius single sign on.
Speaker 1: Right, the single sign on approaches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they centralize user identity across lots of different services.
Speaker 2: You can also use client certificates or a SANAMEL for
Speaker 2: federated identity. And a really critical option here is require
Speaker 2: TIFA that lets you enable or disable two factor authentication essential.
Speaker 1: These days, absolutely, And you can.
Speaker 2: Fine tune captive portals certificate authentication settings, even down to
Speaker 2: the cooking max age for how long an authentication session lasts.
Speaker 1: So once someone is authenticated, how do you manage access
Speaker 1: to specific internal things like be an internal web server?
Speaker 1: You need to expose securely.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's exactly the job for config firewall access proxy.
Speaker 2: Think of it like a secure gatekeeper and intermediary. It
Speaker 2: sits in front of your reel servers and forwards the traffic,
Speaker 2: so your internal servers are never directly exposed to the
Speaker 2: wild internet.
Speaker 1: A buffer essentially kinda yeah.
Speaker 2: A secure proxy. You define virtual host names that users
Speaker 2: connect to. You can set up load balancing for your
Speaker 2: real servers behind it to distribute the load. You can
Speaker 2: enforce strong SSL cipher suites and minimum maximum TLS versions
Speaker 2: slmnvers sl max version for the connection to the proxy
Speaker 2: and for SSH traffic going through it. You can even
Speaker 2: enable or disable SUSH host key validation for the real
Speaker 2: servers it connects to. That's vital for trust preventing man
Speaker 2: in the middle attacks.
Speaker 1: Right, making sure it's talking to the legitimate server exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: this level of control is well, it's incredible, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean much if you don't know what's actually happening
Speaker 1: on your network.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: What tools does the CLI offer for visibility seeing the action?
Speaker 2: Visibility is absolutely key? You're right. The config alert mail
Speaker 2: setting is a good starting point. It lets you set
Speaker 2: up automated email alerts for a really wide range of events,
Speaker 2: things like your vour to guard licenses about to expire.
Speaker 2: You definitely want to know that before they do, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: or FIPS and common criteria errors, FSSO agent disconnects, SSLVPN
Speaker 2: authentication failures, violation, traffic logs, lots of things. You can
Speaker 2: customize the from address username on the emails, set the
Speaker 2: warning interval for how often you get notified. This means
Speaker 2: you're proactively told about critical system health and security events,
Speaker 2: often before they escalate into bigger problems.
Speaker 1: Because you get alerts. But how do you judge how
Speaker 1: bad something is? How does fortos help you prioritize when
Speaker 1: alerts start flying.
Speaker 2: That's where the configu lock threat weight settings are really insightful.
Speaker 2: They let you assign different threat scores basically to different
Speaker 2: security events. This gives you an immediate sense of the impact. So,
Speaker 2: for example, under antivirus, you could set virus detected to
Speaker 2: have a critical weight if it was blocked in long
Speaker 2: or maybe four to sandbox finding confirmed malicious malware such
Speaker 2: a malicious that could also carry a critical weight. This
Speaker 2: helps you prioritize. You understand the true impact, moving beyond
Speaker 2: just a log entry to an actual severity level. Your
Speaker 2: team knows what to focus on first.
Speaker 1: Okay, prioritizing alerts makes sense, But what about seeing the
Speaker 1: traffic itself live for troubleshooting or just deep analysis.
Speaker 2: Ah. For that, the config Firewalls Sniffer command is your
Speaker 2: go to tool. It's like a powerful magnifying glass for
Speaker 2: your network traffic. You can figure a sniffer to watch
Speaker 2: traffic on a specific interface, maybe filtered by port or
Speaker 2: specific protocol. But here's the really cool part. You can
Speaker 2: also enable various security profiles like your av IPS web
Speaker 2: filter profiles on the snipper itself.
Speaker 1: Really, so you're inspecting the sniffed traffic exactly.
Speaker 2: It effectively lets you apply security inspection to the traffic
Speaker 2: you're observing in real time. This gives you an incredibly
Speaker 2: detailed view of what's crossing that part of your network,
Speaker 2: complete with security verdicts. On the fly. You can choose
Speaker 2: whether to log traffic for all packets scene or maybe
Speaker 2: just at on traffic that's traffic that actually triggered one
Speaker 2: of those security profiles. It provides a deep, raw, sometimes
Speaker 2: surprising look at the network's pulse.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, that sounds incredibly useful for digging into tricky issues.
Speaker 1: Here we is, so the CLI clearly gives you this
Speaker 1: amazing toolkit for core security. But what about the bigger picture,
Speaker 1: the wider network architecture, things like routing or even managing
Speaker 1: other Fortant devices like forty switches.
Speaker 2: Right, it definitely extends beyond just the single box. The
Speaker 2: Configure router commands are key here. They let you set
Speaker 2: up advanced routing protocols BGP, ospf RIP. These are the
Speaker 2: languages routers used to talk to each other and figure
Speaker 2: out the best pads for data across large networks. Or
Speaker 2: you can just configure simple static routes for very specific,
Speaker 2: unchanging traffic directions. And for some clever network address manipulation,
Speaker 2: there's config firewall the NSS translation. This lets you define
Speaker 2: IPv four or IPv six address translations that have and
Speaker 2: within DNS replies. How does that work well. It effectively
Speaker 2: lets you remap source or destination ips and subnets before
Speaker 2: the connection even starts based on the DNS look up.
Speaker 2: It's pretty useful for managing complex network topologies and reachability scenarios.
Speaker 1: Interesting, and you mentioned managing other devices the FDA switches.
Speaker 1: Sounds like the Forti gate can act as a central
Speaker 1: command center for them.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's a big part of the Fortinet security fabric concept.
Speaker 2: The config Switch Controller commands provide that centralized management for
Speaker 2: your FOURDA switches. Under configed switch Controller Global, you can
Speaker 2: set system wide options like firmware provision on authorization.
Speaker 1: What's that due?
Speaker 2: It means when a new switch gets authorized to join
Speaker 2: your network, the FORDA gate automatically pushes the correct firmware
Speaker 2: to it. Great for keeping things consistent and secure. Automation
Speaker 2: right there.
Speaker 1: Nice?
Speaker 2: Yeah. You can also configure things like bounce quarantine link
Speaker 2: automatically reset the port if a device gets quarantined, and
Speaker 2: the coranty mode itself can be byveland, shunting bad traffic
Speaker 2: to a separate network segment, or by redirect, which cleverly
Speaker 2: only redirects the core warrantine devices traffic towards the forty
Speaker 2: gate for inspection. But what's really powerful giving you control
Speaker 2: right down to the individual switch port is config Switch
Speaker 2: Controller Dynamic Port Policy.
Speaker 1: Dynamic policy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It lets you define policies based on matching criteria
Speaker 2: like the device category discovered Interface tags M has addresses
Speaker 2: even the hardware vendor or LLEDP information from the connected device,
Speaker 2: and based on those matches, the policy can automatically apply
Speaker 2: specific quality of service settings. A to two point one
Speaker 2: x authentication rules, assign vlands. It can even bounce port
Speaker 2: link basically flap the port administratively to clear old states
Speaker 2: and apply new configurations.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredibly granular. It adapts the port based on
Speaker 1: what connects precisely.
Speaker 2: It's about intelligent automated control that react to the devices
Speaker 2: connected to your network edge.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's seriously comprehensive control. Now what about managing network congestion,
Speaker 1: ensuring critical apps get the bandwidth they need, especially when
Speaker 1: things get busy.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's the domain of traffic shaping. You find that
Speaker 2: under config firewall shaper. Think of it like setting up
Speaker 2: HOV lanes or express lanes on your digital highway. You
Speaker 2: can configure a per ip shaper, for example, to limit
Speaker 2: the maximum bandwidth and number of concurrent sessions for any
Speaker 2: single IP address. Stops one user hogging everything.
Speaker 1: Useful for guest networks maybe definitely.
Speaker 2: But more broadly, config firewall shaper traffic shaper lets you
Speaker 2: define overall traffic policies. You can set guaranteed bandwidth levels
Speaker 2: for important traffic types and also maximum bandwidth limits. You
Speaker 2: assign priority levels low, medium, high. You can even apply
Speaker 2: different network quality markings like COS classes service or DSCP
Speaker 2: differentiated services codepoint to traffic within these shaped limits. It
Speaker 2: all ensures that even when your network is under heavy load,
Speaker 2: your most critical applications, maybe voice or video calls or
Speaker 2: important business apps, get the smooth, uninterrupted flow they require.
Speaker 1: Okay, from the basic commands telling a fort gate how
Speaker 1: to operate, all the way through intricate details like content
Speaker 1: disarm and reconstruction, that sophisticated DLP fingerprinting, robust two factor authentication,
Speaker 1: and even orchestrating entire networks of fort switches. This deep
Speaker 1: diet has really shown just how much power, how much precision,
Speaker 1: and frankly surprising depth, there is within the FORTYSCLI.
Speaker 2: It really is more than just a configuration tool, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's like a language of ultimate control. It allows administrators,
Speaker 2: allows you to tailor's security and network performance right down
Speaker 2: to the finest details, and that precision translates into a
Speaker 2: highly responsive, highly resilient digital infrastructure, one that's capable of
Speaker 2: adapting to almost any thread or traffic condition you might encounter.
Speaker 1: So, thinking bigger picture, then, what does this level of precision,
Speaker 1: this granular control really mean for the future? For say,
Speaker 1: smart self defending networks. How might this kind of detailed
Speaker 1: control influence that ongoing push towards automation in cybersecurity. Could
Speaker 1: we see systems one day actually writing and optimizing these
Speaker 1: commands themselves, learning in a day acting automatically. We'll leave
Speaker 1: that thought with you