What You'll Need
- Administrator access to the FortiGate web interface
- FortiOS 6.2 or later with REST API enabled
- ~5 minutes to complete setup
- Your Clariti account with adapter management permissions
Get Your Credentials
Log in to the FortiGate web interface. Navigate to System > Administrators and select the admin account you want to use for API access (or create a dedicated read-only admin).
Click on the administrator profile, scroll to API Key, and click Generate. FortiOS creates an API key tied to that administrator. Copy the key immediately — it is only displayed once.
For best security, create a dedicated administrator with a Read-Only admin profile and restrict the trusted host to the IP range Clariti uses for outbound requests.
Enter Credentials in Clariti
| Value from vendor console | Paste into Clariti field |
|---|---|
API Key | API Key |
FortiGate hostname or IP | Host |
Verify Connection
Click Test Connection in Clariti. A successful connection returns a green checkmark. The first data sync typically completes within a few minutes.
IPsec VPN Tunnel Status
Clariti checks each configured IPsec VPN tunnel (site-to-site or other permanent tunnels) for a down status and raises a finding naming the tunnel so a dropped branch-office or partner connection is visible without opening the FortiGate UI.
Dial-up / remote-access VPN tunnels are deliberately excluded from this check. A dial-up tunnel (used for remote-access clients or on-demand branch connections) is expected to go up and down as users connect and disconnect — an idle dial-up tunnel with no client currently connected is a normal resting state, not an outage, so Clariti never raises a finding for it. If your FortiGate has no permanent (non-dial-up) tunnels configured, this check simply produces no findings; every other check on this page is unaffected.
An intentionally cold-standby or disaster-recovery tunnel that is only brought up during a failover will also read as "down" during normal operation, since the FortiGate API has no way to distinguish "cold standby" from "failed" — if you run tunnels this way, expect this check to flag them and treat that as expected rather than an alert.
Troubleshooting
- 401 Unauthorized — The API key may have been regenerated or the administrator account disabled. Generate a new key and update it in Clariti.
- 403 Forbidden — The admin profile may lack read access to the required resources. Assign at least read permissions for System, Network, and User modules — VPN monitor access is required for the IPsec VPN Tunnel Status check above; without it, that check silently stops reporting rather than erroring, so if you scope the API token narrowly, explicitly include VPN monitor read access.
- Timeout — Ensure the FortiGate management interface is reachable from the internet or that appropriate VPN/tunnel access is configured. Clariti retries automatically.