Troubleshooting Tip: User license usage exceeds actual user count on FortiAuthenticator

Description

This article describes under what circumstances more user licenses may be consumed than overall remote and local user counts all together. 

Scope

FortiAuthenticator 8.0.

Solution

In the FortiAuthenticator version branch v8.0.x, it has been observed that the number of used user licenses sometimes exceeds the total number of remote and local users.

The reason for this behavior is that remote users who are assigned the ‘administrator’ role are counted differently. FortiAuthenticator counts these remote admin users as both remote and local users; the local user count will show a higher number than actual local users listed.

This is currently under investigation.

Note: Lower FortiAuthenticator versions are not affected. 

The current workaround is not assigning the administrator role to remote users.