FortiGate Firewall Scheduling Deployment Guide: How to configure and use Schedules

By Manny Fernandez

June 9, 2026

FortiGate Firewall Scheduling Deployment Guide: How to configure and use Schedules

Overview

FortiGate firewall schedules control *when* a firewall policy is active. Every firewall policy references a schedule object, and by default that object is `always`, meaning the policy enforces traffic 24/7. By replacing `always` with a custom schedule, you bind a policy to a specific window of time: business hours, a maintenance weekend, a one-off event, or any combination.

There are three schedule object types:

1. Recurring schedules repeat on specified days of the week at specified start and stop times.
2. One-time schedules take effect once for a single date-and-time range, then expire.
3. Schedule groups bundle multiple recurring and one-time schedules into a single referenceable object.

A key concept to internalize before deploying: a schedule defines *when the policy is in effect*, not *when traffic is forcibly cut*. By default, sessions established inside the active window continue to flow after the window closes. Only new sessions are blocked once the schedule expires. Forcing existing sessions to drop at the stop time requires extra configuration, covered below.

How to Configure

Recurring schedule (GUI)

1. Navigate to Policy & Objects > Schedules.
2. Select Create New > Schedule.
3. Set Type to Recurring.
4. Enter a Name (for example, Business-Hours).
5. Select the Days of the week the schedule applies to.
6. Set the Start Time and Stop Time using 24-hour notation.
7. Select OK.

Recurring schedule (CLI)

config firewall schedule recurring
edit "Business-Hours"
set day monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday
set start 09:00
set end 18:00
next
end

To verify:

show firewall schedule recurring

One-time schedule (CLI)

The start and end fields use the format hh:mm yyyy/mm/dd.

config firewall schedule onetime
edit "Maintenance-Window"
set start 22:00 2026/06/14
set end 04:00 2026/06/15
next
end

Optionally, write an event log message a number of days before expiry:

set expiration-days 3

Schedule group (CLI)

A group lets a single policy reference several windows. For example, blocking a service from 09:00 to 12:00 and again from 13:00 to 17:00 requires two recurring schedules combined into one group.

config firewall schedule group
edit "Split-Workday"
set member "Morning-Block" "Afternoon-Block"
next
end

Apply the schedule to a policy

config firewall policy
edit 4
set name "Allow-Outlook-BusinessHours"
set srcintf "port1"
set dstintf "port2"
set srcaddr "all"
set dstaddr "all"
set action accept
set schedule "Business-Hours"
set service "ALL"
next
end

Overnight (Cross-Midnight) Schedules

A recurring schedule whose stop time is earlier than its start time is treated as spanning midnight into the next day. For example, a window of 22:00 to 06:00 runs overnight. FortiOS exposes a label-day option (none, over-night, and similar) that controls how the schedule is labeled and interpreted for these cross-midnight cases. When building maintenance or after-hours windows, confirm the day assignment matches your intent: an overnight schedule that starts Friday night and ends Saturday morning behaves differently from one set on Saturday alone.

Forcing Sessions to End at the Stop Time

By default, the schedule only governs new session establishment. Long-lived sessions opened inside the window keep flowing after expiry until they time out or are closed. To force termination at the stop time, configure the policy and global session-handling behavior:

config firewall policy
edit 4
set schedule-timeout enable
set firewall-session-dirty check-new
next
end

config system settings
set firewall-session-dirty check-policy-option
end

With schedule-timeout enable, the FortiGate terminates matching sessions when the schedule end time is reached, rather than letting them persist. This is essential when the policy is being used to enforce a hard cutoff (for example, denying a category of traffic outside approved hours rather than merely declining to permit new flows).

Limitations

– Schedules govern policy effectiveness, not active sessions. Without schedule-timeout, established sessions survive past the stop time.
– Schedule groups cannot be nested. A group can contain recurring and one-time schedules but cannot contain another group.
– No sub-minute granularity. Times are specified to the minute in 24-hour notation. You cannot schedule to the second.
– Time accuracy depends on the system clock. Schedules are evaluated against the FortiGate local time. If NTP is not configured or the timezone is wrong, schedules fire at the wrong moment.
– One-time schedules are single-use. Once the end date-and-time passes, the schedule is expired and the policy referencing it will no longer match unless the schedule is edited.
– The always schedule is the implicit default for new policies and cannot be deleted.

Gotchas

– The stop time is exclusive of session teardown. This is the single most common surprise. Admins expect traffic to stop at the end time; instead, only new connections are blocked. Always test with a long-lived session (a large download, a streaming session) if a hard cutoff is required.
– Timezone and DST drift. A schedule built for 09:00 shifts relative to wall-clock expectations if the device timezone is misconfigured or daylight saving transitions are not accounted for. Verify with get system status and execute date.
– Overnight schedules and day selection. Selecting Monday with a 23:00 to 02:00 window means the active period bleeds into Tuesday morning. Confirm whether your intent is keyed to the start day or the calendar day of traffic.
– Deny policies plus schedules. When a schedule is attached to a deny policy, the policy only denies during the active window. Outside the window, the deny rule does not match and traffic may fall through to a lower, more permissive policy. Order your policy table accordingly.
– One-time schedules silently stop matching after expiry. A policy that suddenly stops working may be referencing an expired one-time schedule. Check the schedule object before troubleshooting the policy logic.
– Editing a schedule affects every policy that references it. Schedules are reusable objects. Changing the hours on a shared schedule changes behavior across all bound policies at once.

Best Practices

– Use descriptive names. Business-Hours-MonFri is self-documenting; sched1 is not. Names should communicate days and intent at a glance.
– Reuse schedule objects. Build a small library of standard windows (business hours, after hours, weekend maintenance) and reference them across policies rather than creating duplicates.
– Confirm time sync first. Configure NTP and the correct timezone before deploying any schedule. A schedule is only as accurate as the device clock.
– Decide explicitly about session cutoff. For every scheduled policy, consciously choose whether established sessions should survive expiry. Enable `schedule-timeout` when a hard cutoff matters.
– Use one-time schedules for change control. When making a temporary policy change for a maintenance window or event, attach a one-time schedule so the policy self-expires even if cleanup is forgotten.
– Document deny-with-schedule policies. Because a scheduled deny only denies inside its window, annotate these policies and verify the surrounding policy order behaves correctly outside the window.
– Test before relying on it. Validate the schedule with real traffic across the boundary times, including a session that starts inside the window and continues past the stop time.
– Leverage the security fabric where applicable. The fabric-object enable setting allows a schedule to be synchronized as a fabric object across Security Fabric members, reducing per-device duplication.

Verification Commands

show firewall schedule recurring
show firewall schedule onetime
show firewall schedule group
diagnose firewall iprope list
get system status
execute date

FortiGate Firewall Scheduling Deployment Guide: How to configure and use Schedules

How to Configure

Recurring schedule (GUI)

Recurring schedule (CLI)

Schedule group (CLI)

Overnight (Cross-Midnight) Schedules

Forcing Sessions to End at the Stop Time

Limitations

Gotchas

Best Practices

Verification Commands

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