Helping Hand Questions for FCP_FGT_AD-7.4

FortiGate applies web filters in the following order: Static URL filter, FortiGuard category filter, Web content filter, Web script filter, and Antivirus scanning​.

The traffic from the user on Local-Client (10.0.1.10) pinging the IP address of Remote-FortiGate (10.200.3.1) will match the firewall policy with the service "PING traffic". According to the firewall policy:

Policy ID 6 is set for PING traffic and uses the NAT IP pool "SNAT-Remote1", which is defined as 10.200.1.99.

The certificate warning errors occur because the SSL inspection profile is configured to use a private CA certificate that is not recognized by the browser as being signed by a trusted CA. For the browser to trust the FortiGate's re-signed certificates, the CA certificate used by FortiGate for SSL inspection must be installed in the browser's trusted certificate store. Until the browser recognizes the certificate authority (CA) as trusted, it will continue to display warning errors when accessing HTTPS websites.

References:

FortiOS 7.4.1 Administration Guide: SSL/SSH Inspection Configuration

When SSL certificate inspection is enabled on a FortiGate device, the system uses the following three pieces of information to identify the hostname of the SSL server:

Server Name Indication (SNI) extension in the client hello message (B): The SNI is an extension in the client hello message of the SSL/TLS protocol. It indicates the hostname the client is attempting to connect to. This allows FortiGate to identify the server's hostname during the SSL handshake.

Subject Alternative Name (SAN) field in the server certificate (C): The SAN field in the server certificate lists additional hostnames or IP addresses that the certificate is valid for. FortiGate inspects this field to confirm the identity of the server.

Subject field in the server certificate (D): The Subject field contains the primary hostname or domain name for which the certificate was issued. FortiGate uses this information to match and validate the server’s identity during SSL certificate inspection.

The other options are not used in SSL certificate inspection for hostname identification:

Host field in the HTTP header (A): This is part of the HTTP request, not the SSL handshake, and is not used for SSL certificate inspection.

Serial number in the server certificate (E): The serial number is used for certificate management and revocation, not for hostname identification.

References

FortiOS 7.4.1 Administration Guide - SSL/SSH Inspection, page 1802.

FortiOS 7.4.1 Administration Guide - Configuring SSL/SSH Inspection Profile, page 1799.