Author Archives: Manny Fernandez

I have been in the networking and security field for over 27 years. I started working for resellers back in the Novell days. I obtained my CNE, Master CNE, GroupWise CNE and later moved on to Microsoft with the MCSE. I have obtained numerous industry certifications from Palo Alto, Cisco, Checkpoint, Juniper, RSA, Fortinet, Linux and other. I have worked on every firewall produced since the 1990's from Novell's Border Manager to IP Tables to FortiOS and everything in-between. I have either migrated to or from all of these platforms. It is my passion. I love what I do so I do not consider it work. Today I work for a manufacturer. By far, I enjoy this side much more so hope to continue doing so.

Re-Arming your Windows Server after the 180 day expiration

Have you ever installed a Windows server to do some testing and don't register it because it is a lab…

By Manny Fernandez

August 30, 2022

Extracting Private Key from FortiGate Firewall

Why would you need to export the private key when you create a CSR on the FortiGate.  If for instance,…

By Manny Fernandez

August 30, 2022

Extracting Your Private Key from a .pfx certificate

I had a customer that installed a wildcard certificate on an Exchange server.  Later they wanted to use the same…

By Manny Fernandez

August 30, 2022

FortiMail Email Protection – Step by Step Guide

This is a document written by a colleague of mine working out of Dominican Republic with the Fortinet LATAM team.…

By Manny Fernandez

March 19, 2022

GoToMeeting and Emoji Problems when sharing screen

I am currently running macOS Monterey version 12.2.1 on a Mac mini M1.  When I jump on a GoTo Meeting…

By Manny Fernandez

March 2, 2022

Stream Deck for the SE

My daily job consists of Zoom after Zoom after Zoom followed by lunch with customers and happy hours with more…

By Manny Fernandez

February 27, 2022

Removing Parallels VM Apps from macOS Spotlight

I use Parallels on my MacBook Pro, mostly to run Visio and some other WinDoze apps.  However sometimes when I…

By Manny Fernandez

February 16, 2022

Geo-Blocking with Local In Policy

Sometimes when you set up a standard policy to geo block some countries, you will still see attacks from certain…

By Manny Fernandez

February 10, 2022

FortiWiFi as WiFi Client

Recently, I had a customer come to me and wanted to know if there was a way to use a…

By Manny Fernandez

February 4, 2022

Quick Tip – Controlling Source Interface Traffic

In version 7.x of FortiOS there is now a GUI based option that can allow you to choose what interface…

By Manny Fernandez

October 10, 2021

Quick Tip – When your FortiGate is stuck in ExStart when using OSPF

I wrote an article a while back regarding OSPF.  Here is a quick tip I ran into today and wanted…

By Manny Fernandez

October 5, 2021

Removing “Launch FortiClient” from FortiGate Web Portal VPN

I had a customer that had configured a Web Portal VPN and he did not want anyone using FortiClient since…

By Manny Fernandez

October 4, 2021

How DNS Works

Without DNS (Domain Name System) the Internet would be a difficult place to play, and that is looking at it…

By Manny Fernandez

October 1, 2021

Quick-Tip – Checking your Fortigate DB versions

By default, the FortiGate will reach out to FortiGuard Labs every 2 hours.  It will upgrade the various DB automatically. …

By Manny Fernandez

September 30, 2021

Converting Certificates using OpenSSL

During the course of most security administrator's life, you will inevitably need to convert certificates from certain formats to other…

By Manny Fernandez

September 30, 2021

Using PhoneInfoga to research phone numbers

Had a friend come to me and let me know that someone was calling his house about some roofing deals. …

By Manny Fernandez

August 14, 2021

DNS Doctoring on FortiGate

Sometimes, you have a scenario where your internal servers or devices are using external DNS servers (e.g. 8.8.8.8 or 4.2.2.2…

By Manny Fernandez

August 2, 2021

IPv4 and IPv6 DHCP Options

DHCP Options When configuring DHCP in various system, you sometimes requires specific options such as when you configure Cisco Phones…

By Manny Fernandez

July 26, 2021

Quick-Tip – Geography-Based Internet Services Databases

Sometimes you want to use the awesome feature of Internet Services Database from Fortinet.  The Internet Services Database is an…

By Manny Fernandez

March 16, 2021

DNSTracer and Dig for Troubleshooting DNS problems

When troubleshooting DNS issues,   DNSTracer is a utility to visualize the patch taken by your DNS query.  As most of…

By Manny Fernandez

March 13, 2021

Categories

Recent posts

  • Have you ever ordered a bunch of Fortinet gear... Full Story

  • Had a customer with over 200 static routes on... Full Story

  • This is a work in progress, I will be... Full Story