FortiGate Suggestion: Allow Loging to USB

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
March 23, 2016
9 replies
13514 views

In the past 2-3 years many of my Fortigate devices have lost features due to the removal of internal storage. WAN Acceleration, web cache, logging.. From 90D, 60D, 94D and so on. Many new units also don't come with internal storage 50E. Fortinet, please consider allowing at least logging to a user provided USB device. We could use a USB flash drive or external HD. I understand maybe all 500GB on that HD may not be accessable for logging on say a 30D but something reasonable the device could support would be great!

-It costs Fortinet nothing, and could save Fortinet money. -Assists in troubleshooting problems with TAC. -Reduces RMA on devices as only user replaceable USB flash is being used, not affecting internal storage with read/write cycles. -Build loyalty with users like myself by restoring features the unit was sold with.

Users please speak with your sales rep and maybe comment in this post if you'd like to see this feature added.

I also posted this in the suggestions section but it kind of looks dead.. Sorry in advance if it's a no-no but many people I've spoken with at Fortinet also think this is a great idea but needs user support.

AlexFeren

New Member

Your suggestion makes sense. (I've thought similarly.) +1 from me.

I suspect Fortinet's negativity wouldn't come from technical but rather from marketing, particularly, their model segmentation and their positioning of FortiCloud.

Burhanripl

New Member

We face much competition in this part of the world with competitors for logging options not available with entry level & smb models of fortigate. Having said that, the new Sophos/Cyberoam devices giving more than 50GB SSD hard disk even with entry level models.

At least give option of USB logging or provide us a license software just like Sonicwall gives it to its customer.

We are even happy with Forticloud licensing, but allow the users to download the required logs in csv/pdf format. The logs available on cloud are useless if you cant download it in user readable format.

Antonio_Milanese

New Member

Hello,

yes it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the lack of an integrated logging solution in small deployments (say from 80D and upward) especially considering that the competition offers much more on this price range;

certainly can objected that it is possible to use the Forticloud logging but is viewed as a subpar solution and some customers are reluctant for regulatory issues to log outside their walls.

As I said in other posts the most reasonable solution in terms of features and performance is to provide an Express version of the FortiAnalyzer VM limited to say 2 devices and 20GB of usable space.

IMHO logging onto an external USB device can be potentially a detriment for the performance since all work is done by the main cpu causing latencies in the packets processing.

Personally I found some viable alternatives using Graylog,ELK stack and Netflow but certainly would be perceived as more professional if the solution was integrated using only Fortinet software.

Best regards,

Antonio

bartman10Author

New Member

Where did this rumor of lacking CPU power and latency come from? Even in the same post the guy says Sophos offers logging on the entry level models.

Most FG's are logging right now.. it's ether logging to RAM, to FAZ or to cloud.. so I really don't see where this argument comes from. FG dropping local logging on many units was entirely because of the cheep flash ram wearing out.. no where have I seen nor experienced any kind of CPU load due to local logging on a 90D.. and by the way, the 90D has a really weak cpu.

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO