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willbase
willbase
New Member
May 13, 2025
Question

About wildcard specifications

  • May 13, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 2004 views

Hello,

 

Regarding the fortigate webfilter, I can use wildcards, but does it include multiple subdomains?

If I use wildcards, can I have any number of subdomains with a singleasterisk?

 

example:

Domains defined with wildcards : *.example.com

included? 　　　　　　　　　　　  :aaa.example.com, bbb.aaa.example.com, ccc.bbb.aaa.example.com

 

1 reply

dingjerry_FTNT
Staff
dingjerry_FTNT
Staff
May 13, 2025

Hi @willbase ,

 

Please check this doc for the information:

 

https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-URL-Filter-expressions-for-the-FortiGate/ta-p/192746

    willbase
    willbaseAuthor
    New Member
    May 13, 2025

    Hello,@dingjerry_FTNT

     

    Thank you for your prompt reply. 

     

    Here,

    ï¼»'*.' will also match any subdomains as well as the base domain.ï¼½

    which means that any number of subdomains can be included in the wildcard, right?

    Yurisk
    SuperUser
    Yurisk
    SuperUser
    May 13, 2025

    Hi, not a definite answer as I did not check all possible scenarios - but I did experimenting with the number of subdomains (some 2 years ago, guess FortiOS 7.0.x) and FGT was checking up to 11 subdomains, after that it ignored if I added more subdomains. 

    Again, not 100% verified - it may be those 11 subdomains exceeded allowed FQDN length (255 bytes/chars) or something else. 

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