Fortinet FCSNA version 5 study material

JerryL

Does anyone know where you can get Fortigate Certified Network Security Associate (FCNSA) ver 5 training material from?

thanks.

Staunchy

I'm currently studying for it myself and what I have read it seems that the only study guide you can use is the Fortigate Handbook unless you go for official training.

JerryL

Thanks for the reply and link to the CLI. I have found a couple of books listed but haven't really been able to look at them except for the contents. They're UTM security with Fortinet: Mastering FortiOS and Getting Started with FortiGate. They're available at Amazon. Between the book you gave me the link for and these two, that should hopefully do the trick. $1650 for the 201 course is not cheap.

Fulcrum45

Yeah, Fortinet is a decent company but not a lot of materials out there. I came across official study materials only after taking their online study program which I don't even know if its still available.

JerryL

Hey Fulcrum45;
We use a FortiWiFi 60C and although I’m on it a lot, I’dstill consider myself as just a “user”. What did you use for training material? There are also some videos on their website and YouTube. How long ago did you do your training and wasthe exam a hard one?

JustFred

I would also like to know if there are any other study material out there. The getting started with Fortigate book from Packtpub is a very basic introduction book.

Fulcrum45

Aside from the Fortigate Cookbook there isn't a whole lot of study materials out there. Spiceworks.com will often provide me with a few CLI commands as I need them here and there but most of my knowledge stems from the fact that we work with Fortigates almost exclusively.

When I prepped for my FCNSA exam (a couple of years ago)- I used the Fortinet online program that gave me a years worth of access to their training site and I got a exam voucher to boot. From there I could access their tech notes and study chapter by chapter. If you go to here you will a portal to their training site.

I found the actual exam to be difficult but take that with a grain of salt- I was still rather new to IT at the time so not much was familiar to me. I regurgitated what I remembered from the notes and passed. I think you needed a 60% to pass? There was only ~ 40 questions (of course that may have change since then), so not much to sweat over.

JerryL

I was actually on with Fortigate tech support today and the tech was saying that it's now 50% pass and it's not that difficult. Not the same difficulty as with the CCNA. He said that with the UTM Security with Fortinet book and the CLI book, it should be an easy pass.

Krusader

Is there any way to get my hands on the OS for labs

Staunchy

Krusader wrote: »

Is there any way to get my hands on the OS for labs

You can download a 30 day trail of the FortiOS from fortinet.com and install it on a VM.

Krusader

Thats great thanks

spiderjericho

Staunchy wrote: »

You can download a 30 day trail of the FortiOS from fortinet.com and install it on a VM.

I didn't know that. My previous employer had Fortigates deployed across our enterprise. Is there a license key associated with each OS installation?

And is it a simple VM creation.

Staunchy

spiderjericho wrote: »

I didn't know that. My previous employer had Fortigates deployed across our enterprise. Is there a license key associated with each OS installation?

And is it a simple VM creation.

I haven't tested it as yet but I guess their will be some kind of 30 day license. Not sure how it is done, might just be a simple .VHD download.

spiderjericho

Staunchy wrote: »

I haven't tested it as yet but I guess their will be some kind of 30 day license. Not sure how it is done, might just be a simple .VHD download.

Yeah. Apparently:

FortiGate VM evaluation license
FortiGate VM includes a limited embedded 15-day trial license that supports:
• 1 CPU maximum
• 1024 MB memory maximum
• low encryption only (no HTTPS administrative access)
• all features except FortiGuard updates
You cannot upgrade the firmware, doing so will lock the Web-based Manager until a license is
uploaded. Technical support is not included. The trial period begins the first time you start
Table 1: FortiGate VM model information
Technical Specification FG-VM00 FG-VM01 FG-VM02 FG-VM04 FG-VM08
Virtual CPUs (min/max) 1/1 1/1 1/2 1/4 1/8
Virtual Network Interfaces (min/max) 2 / 10
Virtual Memory (min/max) 1 GB / 1 GB 1 GB / 2 GB 1 GB / 4 GB 1 GB / 6 GB 1 GB /
12 GB
Virtual Storage (min/max) 30 GB / 2 TB
Managed Wireless Access Points
(tunnel mode / global)
32 / 32 32 / 64 256 / 512 256 / 512 1024 / 4096
Virtual Domains (default / max) 1 / 1 10 / 10 10 / 25 10 / 50 10 / 250
FortiGate VM Overview Page 8 VM Installation for FortiOS 5.0
FortiGate VM. After the trial license expires, functionality is disabled until you upload a license
file.

Registering FortiGate VM with Customer Service & Support
To obtain the FortiGate VM license file you must first register your FortiGate VM with Customer
Service & Support.
To register your FortiGate VM:
1. Log in to the Customer Service & Support portal using an existing support account or select
Sign Up to create a new account.
2. In the main page, under Asset, select Register/Renew.
The Registration page opens.
3. Enter the registration code that was emailed to you and select Register. A registration form
will display.
4. After completing the form, a registration acknowledgement page will appear.
5. Select the License File Download link.
6. You will be prompted to save the license file (.lic) to your local computer. See “Upload the
FortiGate VM license file” on page 45 for instructions on uploading the license file to your
FortiGate VM via the Web-based Manager.

So you have 15-days. You might be able to create new VMs and go through the 15-day period again. Dunno. I didn't know Fortinet had expanded into the virtual appliance space.

Staunchy

I'm planning on writing this exam next week friday or week after that. Reading UTM security with Fortinet: Mastering FortiOS and even though it is based on version 4 it is a great read

Dr IT

Hi Staunchy

Just a quick question how many years/months experience do you have with Forti Products ?

I have been tasked with managing a few fortigates's , fortimanager & fortianalyser ? not sure where to start ?

currently i am watching some you tube videos on fortidevices ? and will be reading the Fortigate Cookbook

any other pointers or tips to ace the devices ( they look a bit complex even though many ppl say that these devices are easy to manage and setup )

Staunchy

Dr IT wrote: »

Hi Staunchy

Just a quick question how many years/months experience do you have with Forti Products ?

I have been tasked with managing a few fortigates's , fortimanager & fortianalyser ? not sure where to start ?

currently i am watching some you tube videos on fortidevices ? and will be reading the Fortigate Cookbook

any other pointers or tips to ace the devices ( they look a bit complex even though many ppl say that these devices are easy to manage and setup )

Sup Dr IT, I have worked with Fortigates and FortiAnalyzer just over a year. I haven't touched FortiManager as yet though might get a VM up and running to check it out.

All of my experience comes from playing around and a lot of internet searches. The handbook and cookbook and they also have a video channel as well as a youtube channel (think they exactly the same) showing some videos on how to do things. The handbook is more in depth as to where the cookbook focus more on configuration. Sometimes it gets tricky as there is so many way's of accomplishing the goal.

FortiAnalyzer since the upgrade to FortiOS 5 as gotten a lot more complex to setup reporting and personally I find it a pain in the butt. There is another system called Firemon which looks pretty awesome for centralized management of multi-vendor firewalls.

If you need help or got a question feel free to pop me a PM or invite on skype.

I started working at a new company that is a small ISP, currently got 2x Fortigates 200B's running HA with VDOM's. 1st time I saw the config I was like dafuq my head was spinning.... Did a fortigate install the past friday and doing another 1 on Thursday which is nice preparation for my exam.

Looking forward to a new project we going to start with soon which is going to be massive, rolling out a new WAN using IPv6 on the backbone and be getting 300C's we going to end up being a tier 1 ISP.

spiderjericho

Been awhile since I touched one.

At my last duty station, we had HA pairs of 2-4 depending on the size of the base user population.

Agreed. It seems foreign at first. There's a CLI and web GUI. Web GUI is decent but takes awhile to get used if you don't mess around with firewalls too much. Definitely different than an ASA. It's too bad they don't have an education license that was traffic limited like the CSR VM from Cisco (think it only does 2 Mbps after the trial period).

For such a small vendo, they should make it accessible to spread their gospel especially from the Cisco shops. I always hear terrible things about the last generation of ASAs compared to a fortinet, Palo Alto, Checkpoint, etc,

CCIE Wanna Be

I've searched every link on their website, can't seem to find a way to download a trail version of the Fortigate VM (only thing I saw was an online demo). Do any of you guy know if this option is still available, if so where or if not, know of another way to get a copy to use for training?

Thanks and I do realize this thread is almost a year old, but I am out of ideas, hopefully the TE crowd can help me.

Chinook

Do you by chance work for a Fortinet partner? If so, ask your employer about the certifications. They have 9 in total, 3 of them are sales related. They offer training and a whole bunch of other stuff.

This company makes AWESOME stuff but has terrible marketing for their products. They're right up there with CISCO and their wireless stuff is really good.

PCTechLinc

karenwaddell wrote: »

it's my honor to contribute in this discussion, if you are searching for free trail or materiel or any other information about Fortigate "dumps4it" is the best solution for your preparation, i was very nervous during my preparation. dumps4it hat's off..

You really shouldn't be condoning the use of ****. You could find yourself banned from every certification vendor out there. It's a big reason why Cisco just recently increased their prices across their exams. CYA and stick to the officially licensed material from reputable sources.