Working with a FortiGate account

Last update: May 27 2025

Working with a FortiGate account

Create an administrator account⁠

1. Click the System → Administrators tab.
2. Select Create new → System administrator.
3. Enter a name, password, and profile. A profile is a role that has a set of permissions.
4. Customize a profile or create a new one on the Admin Profiles tab.
5. Optional: configure two-factor authentication.

Change the password for the administrator account⁠

Graphical interface

1. Go to System → Administrators.
2. Select the admin user from the list.
3. Click Edit.
4. Select Change password and fill in the fields.
5. Press OK.

Console interface

To change the password through the CLI, enter:

    config system admin
    edit admin
    set password <admin_password>
    end

Configure account lockout⁠

In the CLI, you can configure both the number of attempts (admin-lockout-threshold) and the waiting time after which the administrator can try to enter the password again (admin-lockout-duration).

The default admin-lockout-threshold value is 3, and the range of values is 1 to 10. The default admin-lockout-duration is set to 60 seconds, and the range of values is 1 to 4294967295 seconds.

To change via the CLI, enter:

config system global
set admin-lockout-threshold 3
set admin-lockout-duration 60
end

Rename the account⁠

You cannot edit the user name under which you are logged in.

1. Create a new administrator account.
2. Log in with the super_admin account
3. Go to System → Administrators.
4. Edit the name.