Technical Tip: How to set up warning prompts for each FortiGate Web Filter Categories

FortiGate offers a variety of web filter categories. For a comprehensive list of these categories and their corresponding IDs,  refer to FortiGuard web filter categories - FortiOS 7.6.2 documentation.

Web filters can be configured to present users with a warning prompt when attempting to access websites for each of the  categories. To implement this functionality, it is necessary to enable the command 'set warning-prompt per-domain' within the web filter profile for the desired category. Additionally, the inspection mode for the traffic must be set to proxy.

For instance, to configure a warning prompt for users visiting websites categorized under 'Games', follow the steps outlined below:

1. Clone the default web filter and assign it a new name. For example: 'Test'.
2. In the GUI, access the CLI for the newly created web filter 'Test' profile by selecting 'Edit in CLI'.
3. Apply the following configuration changes within the 'Test' web filter profile:

config webfilter profile

    edit "Test"

        config ftgd-wf

            config filters

                edit 1

                    set category 20   <----- Category Number (Games).

                    set action warning    <----- Action.

                    set warn-duration 5s  <----- Duration for the warning prompt.

                    set warning-prompt per-domain <----- Enable warning prompt per domain.

    end

4. After making the necessary changes to the 'Test' web filter profile, ensure that this web filter profile is attached to the relevant traffic policy. The inspection mode should be set to proxy, and SSL inspection can be configured as either certificate or deep inspection.
5. When a user attempts to access any website within the 'Games' category, a warning prompt will be displayed in the browser, prompting the user to click the "Proceed" button to access the website.

Related document:

Custom warning page when accessing an AI website