Virtual Domains (VDOMS) – FortiOS 5.2 Best Practices

Virtual Domains (VDOMs)

VDOMs can provide separate firewall policies and, in NAT/Route mode, completely separate configurations for routing and VPN services for each connected network or organization. This section provides a list of best practices for configuring VDOMs.

Per-VDOM resource settings

While Global resources apply to resources shared by the whole FortiGate unit, per-VDOM resources are specific to only one Virtual Domain.

By default all the per-VDOM resource settings are set to no limits. This means that any single VDOM can use up all the resources of the entire FortiGate unit if it needs to do so. This would starve the other VDOMs for resources to the point where they would be unable to function. For this reason, it is recommended that you set some maximums on resources that are most vital to your customers.

Virtual domains in NAT/Route mode

Once you have enabled virtual domains and created one or more VDOMs, you need to configure them. It is recommended that you perform the following tasks in the order given (while you may not require all for your network topology):

1. Change the management virtual domain.

2. Configure FortiGate interfaces in a NAT/Route VDOM.

3. Configure VDOM routing.

4. Configure security policies for NAT/Route VDOMs.

5. Configure UTM profiles for NAT/Route VDOMs.

6. Test the configuration.

Virtual clustering

If you decide to disable override for clurstering, as a result of persistent renegotiating, you should disable it for both cluster units.


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About Mike

Michael Pruett, CISSP has a wide range of cyber-security and network engineering expertise. The plethora of vendors that resell hardware but have zero engineering knowledge resulting in the wrong hardware or configuration being deployed is a major pet peeve of Michael's. This site was started in an effort to spread information while providing the option of quality consulting services at a much lower price than Fortinet Professional Services. Owns PacketLlama.Com (Fortinet Hardware Sales) and Office Of The CISO, LLC (Cybersecurity consulting firm).

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