Sources, scope and verification gates

Firewall policy / 8.0.0

Official indexed text retrieved; matches services/endpoints, initiating direction and unmatched denial. This pack paraphrases the core decision only.

Configuration backups / 8.0.0

Official indexed text retrieved; supports encrypted local backup, masking distinction and restore/reboot requirements.

VM licensing / 8.0.0

Direct fetch 403. Indexed result mentions duplicate-instance licensing; exact license/offline requirements remain a gate.

Trial restrictions / 7.6.4

Indexed text: one evaluation/account, 1 CPU, 2 GB, three interfaces/policies/routes, limited encryption, no FortiGuard/FortiCare. These do not describe the user’s paid entitlement.

Trial reference / 8.0.0

Indexed reference found; do not apply 7.6.4 limits to another installed build without verification.

Known issues / 8.0.0

Indexed known issue 1115988 concerns incorrect FortiFlex registration display. Do not reboot or diagnose the user’s VM from this alone.

Candidate release notes / 8.0.2

Direct fetch 403 and exact-version search gave no usable primary result. Not verified as installed, current, suitable or recommended.

Candidate known issues / 8.0.2

Direct fetch 403. Full release/known-issue review is still required after actual build is known.

FortiOS Administrator exam

Full page opened: 8.0 Coming Soon; 7.6 Available. These first three foundations support later policies/routing work; no exam-completeness claim.

Training library

Indexed official library shows 8.0 self-paced course updated 18 September 2026. Training availability is distinct from exam availability.

36-lesson roadmap and exam mapping

Retain the reference sequence: 1–3 foundations; 4–6 workspace/console/backup; 7–12 interfaces, DHCP, routes, objects, policies and sessions; 13–16 NAT/logging/capture; 17–24 identity and inspection; 25–32 SD-WAN, IPsec, HA, firmware and diagnosis; 33–36 cloud/SASE/change/capstone. The setup prerequisite here scaffolds the environment; it does not silently renumber later lessons. Only lessons 1–3 are authored in this pack.

Deployment: setup prerequisite only, runtime pending. Policies/authentication: lesson 1 conceptual policy, authentication not covered. Routing: lesson 2 static path foundations only. Inspection and VPN: not covered. Lessons 1–3 provide no certification-equivalent coverage for either 7.6 or 8.0.

Remaining gates

• Actual build, entitlement, resources, isolation, management and protected baseline.
• Version-matched complete appliance setup/rollback and known-issues review.
• Real allow/service-fault/route-fault/restore observations on the appliance.
• Material changes require fresh source, visual and interface review. Appliance validation remains a separate pending gate.

Protocol foundations for the detailed explorer

Opened 2 November 2026. Original teaching examples use the shared lab manifest; no RFC example is represented as captured traffic.

• RFC 826: local Ethernet address resolution.
• RFC 9293: TCP flags, endpoint ports, handshake and byte-stream behavior.
• RFC 1035: DNS query/response, A records and UDP/TCP transports.
• RFC 1812: IPv4 forwarding, routing and TTL.

Public release scope • 3 November 2026

These chapters publish foundations and guided analysis. The appliance setup/runtime gate remains closed. Official GNS3 setup/import and Fortinet training/exam pages were refreshed on 3 November; VM licensing full-page access still returned 403. Earlier version-specific access notes retain their original research date. Documentation and browser checks do not establish appliance execution; complete the lab setup and validation prerequisites before practical exercises.