Monitoring Fortinet Secure SD-WAN
Get complete visibility into your Fortinet Security Fabric with Site24x7. Connect a FortiManager instance to automatically discover every FortiGate, FortiAP, FortiSwitch, and FortiExtender device it manages, then track each device's health, performance, and availability from a single console to spot issues across your Fortinet deployment before they affect your network.
Use cases
- Get centralized visibility into an entire Fortinet Security Fabric without adding and configuring each device individually.
- Track CPU, memory, disk, and session metrics across a firewall fleet to catch capacity issues before they cause an outage.
- Monitor wireless network health using connected client counts and signal strength (RSSI) for FortiAP access points.
- Keep tabs on connected device counts and Power over Ethernet (PoE) utilization for FortiSwitch switches.
- Get alerted the moment a managed device goes down or a threshold is breached without having to log in to FortiManager separately.
Benefits
- Automatically discover an entire Fortinet Security Fabric through a single FortiManager connection, saving the effort of adding each device one by one.
- View device details alongside performance graphs, all in one place.
- Visualize how FortiGate, FortiAP, FortiSwitch, and FortiExtender devices connect to each other using the network topology view.
- Configure threshold-based alerts for the FortiManager monitor so you're notified as soon as response time or availability degrades.
- Correlate a Fortinet device outage with other monitors in your Site24x7 account for faster root cause analysis.
Prerequisites
- A Fortinet FortiManager instance with the FortiGate, FortiAP, FortiSwitch, and FortiExtender devices you want to monitor registered to it.
- An API token generated from FortiManager with read access to the administrative domains (ADOMs) that contain the devices to be monitored.
To get started with monitoring, add a FortiManager monitor.
Monitor details
Summary tab
The Summary tab shows the FortiManager instance's availability, an events timeline, response time trends, and device details, including the FortiManager URL, Version, Serial Number, Hostname, Platform, Build, HA Mode, and License Status.
Topology tab
The Topology tab displays a map of the FortiManager instance and every Fortinet device it manages. Using color-coded status indicators, the map allows you to spot a down or unreachable device at a glance.
FortiGate tab
Lists every FortiGate firewall managed by the FortiManager instance along with its Status, Device Name, Serial Number, and Platform.
FortiAP tab
Lists every FortiAP access point managed by the FortiManager instance along with its Status, Name, Serial Number, and Platform.
FortiSwitch tab
Lists every FortiSwitch switch managed by the FortiManager instance along with its Status, Device Name, Serial Number, and Platform.
FortiExtender tab
Lists every FortiExtender device managed by the FortiManager instance along with its Status, Device Name, Serial Number, and Platform.
FortiGate device
Displays detailed performance and configuration data for a single FortiGate firewall, including CPU, memory, disk, and session metrics.
FortiAP device
Displays detailed performance data for a single FortiAP access point, including connected clients, signal strength, and resource usage.
FortiSwitch device
Displays detailed performance data for a single FortiSwitch switch, including connected devices and PoE utilization.
FortiExtender device
Displays detailed performance data for a FortiExtender device, including signal strength (RSSI) along with CPU and memory utilization.
Configuring thresholds
- Go to Admin > Configuration Profiles > Threshold and Availability.
- Click the pencil icon next to a FortiManager threshold profile to edit it, or click the plus icon + to create one.
- Under Threshold Configuration, select a Condition, enter the Threshold (Unit(s)) value, select a Poll Strategy and Poll Value, and choose the severity in the Notify As drop-down menu.
- Select an Automation to run when the threshold is breached, if required.
- Click Add Critical Threshold to configure a second, more severe threshold.
- Click Save.
Best practices
- Generate a dedicated, read-only API token in FortiManager for Site24x7 rather than reusing an administrator's personal token.
- Group related FortiGate, FortiAP, FortiSwitch, and FortiExtender devices into monitor groups (for example, by data center or region) for easier tracking.
- Set a stricter response time threshold for business-critical FortiGate firewalls than for less critical access points or extenders.
- Review the Topology tab periodically to confirm that all expected devices are being discovered and monitored.
- Configure the Dependent on Monitor field so that alerts for managed devices are automatically suppressed when the FortiManager instance itself is down.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Probable cause | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| The FortiManager monitor shows a configuration error. | The API token is invalid, expired, or doesn't have sufficient permissions. | Regenerate the API token in FortiManager with read access to the required ADOM(s) and update it in the monitor configuration. |
| Managed devices aren't discovered. | There's a network connectivity issue between the On-Premise Poller and FortiManager, or the devices belong to an ADOM the API token can't access. | Verify connectivity to the FortiManager URL and confirm that the API token has access to the ADOM containing the devices. |
| A managed device shows a dash (‑) instead of live metrics. | The device is currently offline or unreachable from FortiManager. | Check the device's physical connectivity and status directly in FortiManager. |
| A FortiGate device's configuration status is unexpectedly out of sync. | Configuration changes made directly on the FortiGate device haven't been synced back to FortiManager. | Sync the device configuration from FortiManager. |