Troubleshooting outline

Establishing a system baseline

Before you can define an abnormal operation, you need to know what normal operation is. When there is a problem, a baseline for normal operation helps you to define what is wrong or changed.

Baseline information can include:

• Logging (see "Enabling log types, packet payload retention, & resource shortage alerts" in FortiWeb Administration Guide.)
• Monitoring performance statistics such as memory usage (see "System Resources widget" and "SNMP traps & queries" in FortiWeb Administration Guide.)
• Regular backups of the FortiWeb appliance's configuration (see "Backups" in FortiWeb Administration Guide)

If you accidentally change something, the backup can help you restore normal operation quickly and easily. Backups also can aid in troubleshooting: you can use a tool such as diff to find the parts of the configuration that have changed.

Determining the source of the problem

To know which solutions to try, you first need to locate the source of the problem. Occasionally, a problem has more than one possible source. To find a working solution, you will need to determine the exact source of the problem.

• Did FortiWeb’s hardware and software both start properly? If not, see System boot-up issues.
• Are you having Login issues? For details, see System login & authentication issues.

• What has recently changed?

  Do not assume that nothing has changed in the network. Use Diff and Backups (see "Backup & restore" in FortiWeb Administration Guide) to check if something changed in the configuration, and Logging (see "Logging" FortiWeb Administration Guide) to check if an unusual condition occurred. If the configuration did change, see what the effect is when you roll back the change.

• Does your configuration involve HTTPS?

  If yes, make sure your certificate is loaded and valid.

• Are any web servers down?

  See "Policy Status dashboard" FortiWeb Administration Guide.

• Is a policy disabled?
• Does the problem originate on the camera, FortiWeb, or your computer? There are two sides to every connection. For details, see Diagnosing Network Connectivity Issues.
• Does the problem affect only specific clients or servers? Are they all of the same type?

• Is the problem intermittent or random? Or can you reproduce it reliably, regardless of which camera or computer you use to connect to FortiWeb?

  If the problem is intermittent, you can use the "System Resources widget" in FortiWeb Administration Guide to see whether the problem corresponds to FortiWeb processor or RAM exhaustion. For details, see Diagnosing system issues.

  You can also view the event log. If there is no event log, someone may have disabled that feature. For details, see "Enabling log types, packet payload retention, & resource shortage alerts" in FortiWeb Administration Guide.

• Is your system under attack?

  View the "Attack Log widget" in FortiWeb Administration Guide.

Planning & access privileges

Create a checklist so that you know what you have tried, and what is left to check.

If you need to contact Fortinet Technical Support, it helps to provide a list of what data you gathered and what solutions you tried. This prevents duplicated efforts, and minimizes the time required to resolve your ticket.

If you need access to other networking equipment such as switches, routers, and servers to help you test, contact your network administrator. Fortinet Technical Support will not have access to this other equipment. However, they may need to ask you to adjust a setting on the other equipment.

If you are not using the admin account on FortiWeb, verify that your account has the permissions you need to run all diagnostics.