Determining the network topology

The FortiGate unit requires an active FortiLink interface to manage all of the subtending FortiSwitch units (called stacking).

You can configure the FortiLink as a physical interface or as a logical interface (associated with one or more physical interfaces). Depending on the network topology, you can also configure a standby FortiLink.

NOTE: For any of the topologies:

• All of the managed FortiSwitch units will function as one Layer-2 stack where the FortiGate unit manages each FortiSwitch separately.
• The active FortiLink carries data as well as management traffic.

This section covers the following topics:

• Single FortiGate managing a single FortiSwitch unit
• Single FortiGate unit managing a stack of several FortiSwitch units
• HA-mode FortiGate units managing a single FortiSwitch unit
• HA-mode FortiGate units managing a stack of several FortiSwitch units
• HA-mode FortiGate units managing a FortiSwitch two-tier topology
• Single FortiGate unit managing multiple FortiSwitch units (using a hardware or software switch interface)
• HA-mode FortiGate units using hardware-switch interfaces and STP
• FortiLink over a point-to-point layer-2 network
• FortiLink mode over a layer-3 network
• Switch redundancy with MCLAG