IP Address Management (IPAM) feature on Fortigate enable

[MORAMADAN]

Hello Bro,

             I have currently deployed the Fortigate appliance with fortios 7.0.12.

I have purchased the bundle license. "AV,IPS, video and URL fiter".

My question is that, I want to enable the IPAM feature on the box, does this has any additional license other than the mentioned above?

do you recommend enabling it for more assets visibility? especially that I have DHCP enabled on the Box?.

TIA.

MR.

[Yurisk · Accepted solution]

Hi, 

• No, you don't need additional license to use it
• This feature is designed for Fortigate itself to acquire IP address via IPAM as part of a Fabric, not sure what you mean by 'visibility' - it is not a feature for end clients behind the FGT, "device identification" here would suit more. Anyway, regarding the experience - never used this feature, so will refrain from recommending it or not.

[Yurisk · Accepted solution]

Thanks, glad to be of any help.

No, it is not its function. The idea is when you have multiple Fortigates connected to the root Fortigate in the Fabric and you want to assign (mostly) WAN IP addresses to these satellite Fortigates from central location - the root Fortigate. IPAM is a separate protocol, unrelated to DHCP. 

For LAN-connected devices, you have feature called Device Identification - where Fortigate tries to identify every host passing through it (its OS, mac address, vendor etc.). This is the closest to what you are trying to achieve, I think. Have a look here - https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-Enable-Device-Detection-to-allow-FortiOS-t... 

[Yurisk · Accepted solution]

Hi, 

• No, you don't need additional license to use it
• This feature is designed for Fortigate itself to acquire IP address via IPAM as part of a Fabric, not sure what you mean by 'visibility' - it is not a feature for end clients behind the FGT, "device identification" here would suit more. Anyway, regarding the experience - never used this feature, so will refrain from recommending it or not.

[MORAMADAN]

Hello Yuri,

               Fisrtly of all, I would thank you for your linked fortigate tips, very efficient and professional Bro. , Good luck.

and back to our subject, I though this IPAM is for known "IP Address Management" tracking IP addresses, MACs, DHCP clients and utilization, and Active hosts.

this is why I wanted to ask about enabling the IPAM to make use of it.

[Yurisk · Accepted solution]

Thanks, glad to be of any help.

No, it is not its function. The idea is when you have multiple Fortigates connected to the root Fortigate in the Fabric and you want to assign (mostly) WAN IP addresses to these satellite Fortigates from central location - the root Fortigate. IPAM is a separate protocol, unrelated to DHCP. 

For LAN-connected devices, you have feature called Device Identification - where Fortigate tries to identify every host passing through it (its OS, mac address, vendor etc.). This is the closest to what you are trying to achieve, I think. Have a look here - https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiGate/Technical-Tip-Enable-Device-Detection-to-allow-FortiOS-t... 

[MORAMADAN · Accepted solution]

Thank you so much Yurisk :)