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Administration Guide

Virtual routing and forwarding

Virtual routing and forwarding

Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) is used to divide the FortiGate's routing functionality (layer 3), including interfaces, routes, and forwarding tables, into separate units. Packets are only forwarded between interfaces that have the same VRF.

VDOMs divide the FortiGate into two or more complete and independent virtual units that include all FortiGate functions. VDOMs can be used for routing segmentation, but that should not be the only reason to implement them when a less complex solution (VRFs) can be used. VDOMs also support administration boundaries, but VRFs do not.

Up to 32 VRFs can be configured in each VDOM, but only ten VDOMs can be configured by default on a FortiGate (more VDOMs can be configured on larger devices with additional licenses).

Virtual routing and forwarding

Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) is used to divide the FortiGate's routing functionality (layer 3), including interfaces, routes, and forwarding tables, into separate units. Packets are only forwarded between interfaces that have the same VRF.

VDOMs divide the FortiGate into two or more complete and independent virtual units that include all FortiGate functions. VDOMs can be used for routing segmentation, but that should not be the only reason to implement them when a less complex solution (VRFs) can be used. VDOMs also support administration boundaries, but VRFs do not.

Up to 32 VRFs can be configured in each VDOM, but only ten VDOMs can be configured by default on a FortiGate (more VDOMs can be configured on larger devices with additional licenses).