NSE7 Practice Exam 52 — 20 Questions

Question 1

Based on the debug flow output, what is the reason the packet is dropped?

Accepted Answer

There is no firewall policy that matches the traffic.. The debug flow output indicates that the packet was dropped because no firewall policy matched the traffic. In FortiGate, even if a valid route exists, the packet must be evaluated against firewall policies; if no policy permits the traffic based on source, destination, service, and interface, the packet is silently dropped. The debug flow will show a message like 'no matching policy' or 'deny by policy' in such cases.

Answer

The route to the destination is missing.

Answer

The packet has an invalid source IP address.

Answer

The session table is full.

Question 2

A FortiGate is experiencing high CPU usage. The administrator runs 'diagnose sys top' and sees that the process 'ipsengine' is using the most CPU. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

A large volume of traffic is being inspected by IPS, possibly due to a DoS attack.. The ipsengine process handles Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) inspection. High CPU usage by ipsengine typically indicates that the FortiGate is processing a large volume of traffic through IPS signatures, which is computationally intensive. This is often triggered by a DoS attack or a sudden surge in traffic that requires deep packet inspection, overwhelming the CPU.

Answer

The firewall is experiencing a memory leak.

Answer

The antivirus engine is scanning large files.

Answer

There is a routing loop causing packet bouncing.

Question 3

A FortiGate is experiencing high latency on traffic passing through it. The administrator suspects that asymmetric routing is occurring. Which TWO symptoms are indicative of asymmetric routing?

Accepted Answer

Traffic from the same source IP arrives on different interfaces for different sessions.. Asymmetric routing occurs when traffic from the same source IP takes different paths through the network, causing packets to arrive on different FortiGate interfaces for different sessions. This breaks stateful inspection because the firewall expects all packets of a session to traverse the same interface; when they don't, it can lead to session timeouts or dropped packets, manifesting as high latency.

Answer

The routing table shows multiple equal-cost paths to the same destination.

Answer

Traffic matching a policy is logged as allowed but the application does not work.

Answer

CPU usage is consistently above 90% during peak hours.

Question 4

Based on the exhibit, what can be concluded about the session?

Accepted Answer

The session is offloaded to the NPU for hardware acceleration.. The session state 'npu' indicates that the session has been offloaded to the Network Processor Unit (NPU) for hardware acceleration. This is a normal and expected state for traffic that matches hardware-offloadable profiles, allowing the NPU to process packets at wire speed without CPU intervention.

Answer

The session is a one-way session with only outbound traffic.

Answer

The session is not being logged.

Answer

The session is in the 'npu' state, meaning it is being processed by the CPU.

Question 5

An organization uses FortiGate with OSPF and BGP. Recently, routes from BGP are not being preferred over OSPF routes, causing suboptimal routing. The administrator wants to ensure BGP routes are preferred. Which two actions can achieve this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Decrease the administrative distance of BGP routes to 5.. Option A is correct because decreasing the administrative distance (AD) of BGP routes to 5 makes them more trustworthy than OSPF routes (default AD 110). Since a lower AD is preferred, BGP routes will be installed in the routing table over OSPF routes, ensuring BGP is preferred for forwarding decisions.

Answer

Configure route-map to set metric to 1 on BGP routes.

Answer

Set a higher weight on BGP routes for the prefixes.

Question 6

A FortiGate administrator is designing a VDOM configuration for a multi-tenant environment. Each tenant requires its own routing table and firewall policies. Which VDOM type should be used for each tenant?

Accepted Answer

NAT mode VDOM. In a multi-tenant VDOM environment where each tenant requires its own routing table and firewall policies, NAT mode VDOM (option D) is the correct choice because it operates as a Layer 3 routing entity with its own independent routing table, interfaces, and firewall policies. This mode allows each tenant VDOM to perform NAT, route between subnets, and enforce security policies autonomously, which is essential for tenant isolation and policy control.

Answer

TP mode VDOM

Answer

Router mode VDOM

Answer

Transparent mode VDOM

Question 7

An administrator is configuring a FortiGate HA cluster and wants to ensure that the cluster can tolerate a failure of one unit without administrative intervention. The cluster must also support upgrading firmware with minimal downtime. Which HA mode should the administrator select?

Accepted Answer

Active-passive HA. Active-passive HA (option C) is correct because it provides automatic failover without administrative intervention when a unit fails, and it supports hitless firmware upgrades by upgrading the standby unit first, then performing a failover to make it active, followed by upgrading the original active unit. This mode uses a single management IP and synchronizes configuration and session state between the primary and backup units, ensuring minimal downtime during both failure and upgrade scenarios.

Answer

Standalone mode

Answer

Active-active HA

Answer

FGCP mode

Question 8

An administrator configures two FortiGate units in an active-passive HA cluster. During a failover test, the administrator notices that the secondary unit becomes primary but the session table is empty, causing all existing connections to drop. Which configuration change should be made to preserve session information during failover?

Accepted Answer

Enable session pickup and configure HA session synchronization. Option D is correct because session pickup and HA session synchronization are specifically designed to replicate the session table from the primary FortiGate to the secondary unit in an active-passive cluster. Without this feature, the secondary unit becomes primary but has no knowledge of existing sessions, causing all active connections to drop. Enabling session synchronization ensures that session state information is continuously mirrored to the standby unit, allowing seamless failover without disrupting established flows.

Answer

Enable FGCP configuration synchronization

Answer

Configure dead gateway detection on the FortiGate units

Answer

Enable link-failover on the monitored interfaces

Question 9

During a failover test in an HA cluster, the administrator observes that the secondary unit becomes primary but does not have the latest configuration. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Config sync is not enabled. Config sync is the mechanism that replicates configuration changes from the primary unit to the secondary unit in a FortiGate HA cluster. If config sync is not enabled, the secondary unit will not receive configuration updates, so when it becomes primary after a failover, it will operate with an outdated or default configuration. This directly explains why the secondary unit lacks the latest configuration after the failover.

Answer

The password encryption is mismatched

Answer

The HA priority is set too low

Answer

session-pickup is disabled

Question 10

A company has two FortiGate firewalls in an HA active-passive cluster. They want to separate network traffic for different departments using VDOMs. After configuring VDOMs on both units, the HA status shows 'synchronized' but traffic for one VDOM is not passing through the active unit. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

A VDOM link is missing on the passive unit.. In an HA active-passive cluster, VDOM configurations must be identical on both units for synchronization to be complete. A missing VDOM link on the passive unit means the inter-VDOM routing path is not fully replicated, so even though HA status shows 'synchronized' (which may only reflect global or non-VDOM-specific settings), traffic for that VDOM cannot be forwarded correctly by the active unit because the passive unit's configuration is incomplete, breaking the expected redundancy and traffic flow.

Answer

The administrator account used to configure VDOMs lacks permission.

Answer

The HA mode must be active-active to use VDOMs.

Answer

HA is not compatible with VDOMs.

Question 11

A network engineer is configuring an HA pair of FortiGate firewalls. They want to ensure that session failover occurs for UDP-based voice traffic with minimal interruption. Which HA configuration setting is most important for achieving this goal?

Accepted Answer

Enable session-pickup. Session-pickup is the correct setting because it enables the secondary FortiGate to synchronize UDP session state information from the primary, allowing seamless failover of voice traffic without requiring new session establishment. UDP is connectionless, so without session-pickup, the secondary would drop the traffic as unknown, causing noticeable interruption in real-time voice streams.

Answer

Enable session-pickup-delay

Answer

Set ha-pickup-delay to 0

Answer

Configure ha-mgmt-interfaces

Question 12

Match each FortiGate authentication method to its protocol.

Question 13

A FortiGate HA cluster is configured with VDOMs. Each VDOM is assigned to different physical interfaces. The cluster is in active-passive mode. Which TWO statements about VDOM synchronization in HA are correct?

Accepted Answer

VDOM configuration, including interfaces and policies, is synchronized between cluster members.. Option A is correct because in a FortiGate HA cluster, VDOM configuration—including interfaces, policies, and other settings—is fully synchronized between cluster members. This ensures that both the active and passive units have identical VDOM configurations, enabling seamless failover without manual reconfiguration.

Answer

In active-passive HA, traffic for each VDOM can be distributed across cluster members.

Answer

Each VDOM can have its own HA mode (active-passive or active-active) independent of the global HA mode.

Answer

If one VDOM fails, the entire HA cluster fails over to the standby unit.

Question 14

A FortiGate HA cluster is configured with two units in active-passive mode. The administrator needs to perform a firmware upgrade on the cluster with minimal downtime. The current firmware version is 7.2.5 and the target is 7.2.7. The cluster uses FGCP with session synchronization enabled. Which procedure should the administrator follow?

Accepted Answer

Upgrade the passive unit first, perform a graceful failover, then upgrade the new passive unit. Option D is correct because it follows the recommended upgrade procedure for an active-passive FGCP cluster with session synchronization. By upgrading the passive unit first, then performing a graceful failover (which preserves existing sessions via FGCP session sync), and finally upgrading the new passive unit, the administrator ensures that the cluster remains operational throughout the process with minimal traffic disruption. This method avoids a full cluster outage and maintains session continuity.

Answer

Upgrade only the primary unit and let the secondary synchronize automatically

Answer

Disable HA, upgrade both units, then re-enable HA

Answer

Upgrade both units at the same time by connecting to each via console

Question 15

An administrator has configured two VDOMs on a FortiGate. One VDOM is in NAT mode and the other in transparent mode. The administrator wants traffic from the transparent mode VDOM to be routed through the NAT mode VDOM. What must be configured to allow inter-VDOM routing?

Accepted Answer

Create an inter-VDOM link. Inter-VDOM routing between VDOMs in different modes (NAT and transparent) requires a dedicated inter-VDOM link (IVL), which is a virtual internal connection that allows traffic to pass between VDOMs without consuming physical ports. The IVL creates a pair of virtual interfaces, one in each VDOM, and firewall policies must be configured to permit traffic across them. This is the only method that supports routing between VDOMs of different modes on the same FortiGate.

Answer

Use a physical interface to connect the VDOMs

Answer

Enable NPU offloading

Answer

Configure firewall policies between the VDOMs

Question 16

An organization has two FortiGate firewalls in an HA active-passive cluster. They notice that after a failover event, some users cannot access external resources. The administrator checks the HA configuration and finds that failover occurred correctly. What is the most likely cause of the connectivity issue?

Accepted Answer

VDOM links are not synchronized. In an HA active-passive cluster, VDOM links are not automatically synchronized between peers. After a failover, the new primary FortiGate may lack the VDOM link configurations required to route traffic between VDOMs, causing connectivity loss for users relying on inter-VDOM routing. This is a common misconfiguration because VDOM links are treated as local objects and must be explicitly replicated or re-created on the peer.

Answer

session-pickup is disabled

Answer

HA override is enabled

Answer

Gratuitous ARP is disabled

Question 17

An administrator configures two VDOMs as shown in the exhibit. They create an inter-VDOM link between VDOM1 and VDOM2. They then add a firewall policy in VDOM1 allowing traffic from port1 to the inter-VDOM link, and a policy in VDOM2 allowing traffic from the inter-VDOM link to port2. However, traffic from 192.168.1.10 to 10.10.10.50 fails. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Missing route in VDOM1 for the 10.10.10.0/24 network. Option C is correct because inter-VDOM link traffic requires routing in both VDOMs. Even with correct firewall policies, VDOM1 must have a route to the destination network (10.10.10.0/24) pointing to the inter-VDOM link interface. Without this route, VDOM1 drops the packet before it can be forwarded across the link, causing the failure.

Answer

Firewall policies are not correctly configured

Answer

The inter-VDOM link is not configured

Answer

The allowaccess setting on port2 does not include ping

Question 18

A FortiGate HA cluster is configured in active-passive mode with VDOMs. The administrator wants to ensure that a specific VDOM (VDOM1) always runs on the primary unit unless that unit fails. Additionally, the administrator wants to minimize disruption during a failover. Which THREE configuration steps should be taken?

Accepted Answer

Set the HA priority of the primary unit to a higher value (e.g., 200) than the secondary unit. Option A is correct because in an active-passive HA cluster, setting a higher HA priority (e.g., 200) on the primary unit ensures it is elected as the active unit. This guarantees that VDOM1, which is not load-balanced, will run on the primary unit under normal conditions, as the higher priority value makes the primary unit preferred during the election process.

Answer

Disable session pickup to speed up failover

Answer

Enable active-active HA mode

Question 19

Refer to the exhibit. A tunnel interface is configured with IP 10.0.1.1/30 and remote-ip 10.0.1.2/30. The phase2 defines src-subnet as 10.0.1.0/30 and dst-subnet as 10.0.2.0/30. What is the most likely problem with this configuration?

Accepted Answer

The phase2 src-subnet includes the tunnel interface IP. The phase2 src-subnet is set to 10.0.1.0/30, which includes the tunnel interface IP 10.0.1.1/30. In IPsec VPN configurations, the phase2 selector must not include the tunnel interface IP itself because the tunnel interface is used for routing encapsulated traffic; including it can cause routing loops or prevent the tunnel from establishing correctly. The correct src-subnet should be the protected internal network behind the FortiGate, not the tunnel subnet.

Answer

The remote gateway is set to a static IP but the peer might be dynamic

Answer

The tunnel interface is missing the 'ip' command

Answer

The phase2 dst-subnet overlaps with the remote gateway

Question 20

A FortiGate is configured with an IPsec VPN that uses certificate-based authentication. The VPN fails to establish. The administrator checks the phase1 debug and sees the message: 'no suitable certificate found'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The local certificate is not imported or does not match the certificate name. The 'no suitable certificate found' error in IPsec phase1 debug indicates that the FortiGate cannot locate a local certificate that matches the peer's expected certificate name (often the peer's ID or the configured local certificate name). This typically occurs when the local certificate is not imported or the certificate's Common Name (CN) or Subject Alternative Name (SAN) does not match the configured local ID or peer's expected identifier. Without a matching local certificate, the IKE exchange cannot proceed to authenticate the FortiGate to the remote peer.

Answer

The peer's certificate is not trusted

Answer

The certificate revocation list (CRL) is outdated

Answer

The CA certificate is missing

NSE7 Practice Exam 52 — 20 Questions

Exhibit

NSE7 Practice Exam 52 — 20 Questions

Exhibit