What is FortiGuest

FortiGuest is a complete provisioning, management, and reporting system that provides network access for guests and visitors. It works along side wireless controllers (FortiGate), LAN switches, NAC systems, firewalls, and other network enforcement devices that provide captive portal and enforcement points for user (remote) access. This diagram depicts the captive portal authentication process with FortiGuest.

Using FortiGuest with requisite privileges allows you to create user accounts and sponsor them for network access. FortiGuest performs full authentication of sponsors and user accounts. When user accounts are created, they are stored within the built-in database on the FortiGuest server. When using this database, external network access devices can authenticate users against FortiGuest using the RADIUS protocol. FortiGuest provides vital network access accounting, by consolidating the entire audit trail from account creation to actual use of the account. This ensures that reports are generated through a central management interface.

After a user account is deleted, FortiGuest either deletes the account or sends a RADIUS message which notifies the controller of the amount of valid time remaining for the account before the controller removes the user.