FortiGate Traffic Shaping Configuration

by SinaOnline Network Training

Traffic shaping is a method of optimizing network traffic by prioritizing different types of traffic according to their importance. FortiGate firewall offers a traffic shaping feature that can be used to prioritize traffic, limit bandwidth usage, and control network congestion. In this blog post, we’ll discuss how to configure traffic shaping on FortiGate firewall.

Fortigate Traffic Shaping

Step 1: Configure Traffic Shaping Policy

  1. Login to your FortiGate firewall and go to Policy & Objects > Policy > IPv4 Policy. Here you can create a new policy or edit an existing policy to configure traffic shaping settings.
  2. In the policy settings, go to the Traffic Shaping tab and select the Enable Traffic Shaping checkbox.
  3. Select the traffic shaping algorithm that you want to use from the Algorithm dropdown list. You can choose between fair queuing, weighted fair queuing, and priority queuing.
  4. Set the maximum bandwidth for the policy in the Maximum Bandwidth field. You can also set the minimum bandwidth and maximum burst size if needed.

Step 2: Configure Traffic Shaping Profiles

  1. In this step, you’ll create traffic shaping profiles that can be used in traffic shaping policies. Go to Policy & Objects > Traffic Shaping > Profiles and create a new profile.
  2. In the profile settings, you can configure different traffic shaping parameters such as maximum bandwidth, minimum bandwidth, and maximum burst size.
  3. You can also set traffic shaping rules for specific applications or traffic types by creating a new traffic shaping rule in the profile settings.

Step 3: Configure Traffic Shaping Classes

  1. Traffic shaping classes are used to categorize traffic and apply different traffic shaping policies to different traffic classes. Go to Policy & Objects > Traffic Shaping > Classes and create a new class.
  2. In the class settings, you can configure different traffic shaping parameters for the class such as maximum bandwidth, minimum bandwidth, and maximum burst size.
  3. You can also assign traffic shaping profiles to the class by selecting the profile from the Profile dropdown list.

Step 4: Assign Traffic Shaping Classes to Policies

  1. Once you’ve created traffic shaping policies, profiles, and classes, you need to assign the traffic shaping classes to the policies. Go to Policy & Objects > Policy > IPv4 Policy and edit the policy that you want to assign the traffic shaping class to.
  2. In the policy settings, go to the Traffic Shaping tab and select the Enable Traffic Shaping checkbox.
  3. Select the traffic shaping class that you want to assign to the policy from the Traffic Shaping Class dropdown list.

Step 5: Monitor Traffic Shaping

  1. After you’ve configured traffic shaping on your FortiGate firewall, you can monitor the traffic shaping statistics to ensure that the traffic shaping is working properly. Go to FortiView > Traffic Shaping to view the traffic shaping statistics.
  2. In the traffic shaping view, you can see the traffic shaping policies, classes, and profiles that are currently active. You can also view the bandwidth usage and packet loss statistics for each policy.

Conclusion: Traffic shaping is a powerful feature that can be used to optimize network traffic and improve network performance on FortiGate firewall. By following the above steps, you can easily configure traffic shaping on FortiGate firewall and start using it to prioritize traffic, limit bandwidth usage, and control network congestion. Make sure to monitor the traffic shaping statistics regularly to ensure that it’s working properly.