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robinh007
Explorer III
June 18, 2025
Solved

Automating Firewall Configuration Backups to SFTP in FortiManager

  • June 18, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 1329 views

Hi,


I manage several firewalls using FortiManager, and I’d like to automate the regular backup of each firewall’s configuration. So, how can I set up this automation within FortiManager to export all managed firewall configurations to SFTP?

 

 

FortiGate FortiManager 

Best answer by atakannatak

Hi @robinh007 ,

 

FortiManager does not need per-device scripts to back up FortiGate configs. All configuration revisions for every managed firewall live inside FortiManager’s own database, so you simply schedule a system-wide “all-settings” backup that FortiManager pushes to your SFTP server.

 

These below two official Fortinet sources confirm that every scheduled (or on-demand) all-settings backup is saved as an encrypted archive and FortiManager records the file’s MD5 hash in the event log, so you can validate the integrity of the nightly backup generated on your SFTP server. At any time you can run execute backup all-settings sftp … for an on-demand copy or execute restore all-settings sftp … to recover.

 

These below references demonstrate that a scheduled all-settings SFTP job is the Fortinet-supported method to automate complete, nightly backups of every managed FortiGate configuration.

 

  • CLI command config system backup all-settings with SFTP parameters and schedule options

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortimanager/7.6.3/cli-reference/233420/backup-all-settings

 

  • Administration Guide section “Backing up the system”—shows same scheduler syntax and notes that it backs up every ADOM and device database

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortimanager/7.6.3/administration-guide/112240/backing-up-the-system

 

BR.

 

If my answer provided a solution for you, please mark the reply as solved it so that others can get it easily while searching for similar scenarios.

 

CCIE #68781

1 reply

atakannatak
Explorer
June 18, 2025

Hi @robinh007 ,

 

FortiManager does not need per-device scripts to back up FortiGate configs. All configuration revisions for every managed firewall live inside FortiManager’s own database, so you simply schedule a system-wide “all-settings” backup that FortiManager pushes to your SFTP server.

 

These below two official Fortinet sources confirm that every scheduled (or on-demand) all-settings backup is saved as an encrypted archive and FortiManager records the file’s MD5 hash in the event log, so you can validate the integrity of the nightly backup generated on your SFTP server. At any time you can run execute backup all-settings sftp … for an on-demand copy or execute restore all-settings sftp … to recover.

 

These below references demonstrate that a scheduled all-settings SFTP job is the Fortinet-supported method to automate complete, nightly backups of every managed FortiGate configuration.

 

  • CLI command config system backup all-settings with SFTP parameters and schedule options

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortimanager/7.6.3/cli-reference/233420/backup-all-settings

 

  • Administration Guide section “Backing up the system”—shows same scheduler syntax and notes that it backs up every ADOM and device database

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortimanager/7.6.3/administration-guide/112240/backing-up-the-system

 

BR.

 

If my answer provided a solution for you, please mark the reply as solved it so that others can get it easily while searching for similar scenarios.

 

CCIE #68781

robinh007
robinh007Author
Explorer III
June 19, 2025

@atakannatak Thank you, mate.