Technical Tip: Examining the administrators, CPU, memory, and sessions widgets on a FortiGate VM running FortiOS v8.0
Description
This article describes the Administrators, CPU, Memory, and Sessions widgets available by default on the dashboard of a FortiGate VM running FortiOS v8.0. It explains the information provided by these widgets and how corresponding FortiOS CLI commands can be used to verify the displayed administrator access, system resource utilization, and active sessions.
The default dashboard widgets on a FortiGate VM can be grouped by their primary purpose into three categories: system-oriented dashboard information, platform/service-oriented dashboard information, and administrative and operational monitoring dashboard information. For system-oriented dashboard information, refer to Technical Tip: Discovering the System Information Widget on a FortiGate VM Running FortiOS v8.0. For platform/service-oriented dashboard information, refer to Technical Tip: Exploring the licenses, Virtual Machine, FortiGate Cloud, and Security Fabric widgets on a FortiGate VM running FortiOS v8.0.
This article focuses on the administrative and operational monitoring dashboard information provided by the Administrators, CPU, Memory, and Sessions widgets.
Scope
FortiGate VM, FortiOS v8.0.0, VMware Workstation Pro 17.
Solution
On the dashboard, the Administrators, CPU, Memory, and Sessions widgets are displayed on the Status page. The Administrators widget shows current administrator access, while the CPU and Memory widgets display system resource utilization. The Sessions widget displays the current number of active sessions and session utilization.
The Administrators widget displays the current administrator access by connection type. In the example shown, the widget reports 1 Console, 0 FortiExplorer, and 1 HTTPS connection, and identifies the administrator as admin with the super_admin profile.
The 1 Console connection corresponds to the active VMware console connection to the FortiGate VM. When the console session times out and returns to the FortiGate VM prompt, refreshing the dashboard causes the 1 Console entry to disappear from the Administrators widget.
The corresponding CLI commands can be used to verify the administrator information displayed in the Administrators widget.
For information on accessing the FortiGate CLI, refer to the Fortinet Administration Guide: Connecting to the CLI.
get system info admin status
get system admin list 
The CPU widget displays CPU utilization over the selected time period. The available intervals are 1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, and 24 hours. In the example shown, the widget is set to a 1-minute interval and reports a current usage of 7%, while the graph shows CPU utilization during the selected period.
The corresponding CLI command can be used to verify the CPU utilization information displayed in the CPU widget.
The FortiGate VM used in this example is configured with 1 vCPU, which is why the CLI output includes CPU0 only. If additional vCPUs are allocated to the VM, the CLI output includes the corresponding additional CPU entries.
get system performance status
The CLI output includes additional CPU state parameters such as user, system, nice, idle, iowait, irq, and softirq. For more information, refer to the Fortinet Document Library: system performance status, and the Fortinet Community article: Technical Tip: Explaining the 'get system performance status' output.
The Memory widget displays memory utilization over the selected time period. The available intervals are 1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, and 24 hours. In the example shown, the widget is set to a 1-minute interval and reports a current usage of 56%, while the graph shows memory utilization during the selected period.
The corresponding CLI command can be used to verify the memory utilization information displayed in the Memory widget.
get system performance status
The CLI output reports total memory, used memory, free memory, and freeable memory. Total represents the total system memory available to FortiGate, used represents memory currently in use, free represents memory currently unused, and freeable represents cached memory that can be reclaimed if needed.
The CLI output reports 2,043M of total memory, with 1,143M used, corresponding to 56.0% memory utilization. It also reports 582M free memory (28.5%) and 318M freeable memory (15.5%).
The Memory widget displays memory utilization as a whole-number percentage, while the CLI output may provide the utilization with decimal precision. In this example, the 56% displayed by the widget corresponds to the 56.0% reported by the CLI.
The Sessions widget displays the number of active sessions over the selected time period. The available intervals are 1 minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, and 24 hours. In the example shown, the widget is set to a 1-minute interval and reports 5 current sessions, while the graph shows the number of active sessions during the selected period.
The corresponding CLI command can be used to verify the session information displayed in the Sessions widget.
diagnose sys session list
The CLI output reports a total of 5, which corresponds to the 5 current sessions displayed in the Sessions widget.
The Administrators, CPU, Memory, and Sessions widgets provide useful dashboard information for monitoring administrator access, system resource utilization, and active sessions on a FortiGate VM. The corresponding FortiOS CLI commands can be used to verify the information presented by these widgets and provide additional detail when needed.
