Question 1mediummultiple choice
Review the full subnetting walkthrough →Question 868 of 1,000
Quick Answer
The answer is to restrict administrative access to trusted hosts under System > Admin > Settings. This is correct because the Trusted Hosts feature explicitly filters inbound management sessions—such as HTTPS, SSH, and Telnet—by source IP address or subnet, ensuring only traffic from the specified management subnet can reach the FortiGate’s administrative interfaces. On the Fortinet NSE 4 exam, this concept tests your understanding of access control at the management plane, often appearing in scenario-based questions where you must differentiate between trusted hosts and interface-level policies; a common trap is confusing trusted hosts with firewall policies, which control data traffic rather than administrative access. Remember the memory tip: “Trusted hosts lock the admin door, not the data floor.”
NSE4 System and Network Administration Practice Question
This NSE4 practice question tests your understanding of system and network administration. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A network administrator needs to configure a FortiGate to allow administrative access from a specific management subnet only. Which configuration step should be taken?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Under system > admin > settings, restrict administrative access to trusted hosts.
Option D is correct because the 'Trusted Hosts' feature under System > Admin > Settings allows you to restrict administrative access (HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, etc.) to specific source IP addresses or subnets. This is the intended method for limiting management access to a management subnet without affecting other traffic or interface configurations.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse local-in policies with trusted hosts, thinking that a local-in policy is the primary method for restricting management access, when in fact trusted hosts is the simpler and correct approach for source-based restriction.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
The Trusted Hosts feature works by adding an access control list (ACL) to the local-in traffic path, checking the source IP of management sessions against the configured trusted hosts before allowing authentication. This is implemented at the kernel level, ensuring that even if a management service is enabled on an interface, only packets from the trusted subnet are processed. In a real-world scenario, this prevents accidental exposure of the FortiGate's management interface to the internet, even if the interface has a public IP.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A security administrator must allow nursing staff to reach a patient records server while blocking access from the guest Wi-Fi VLAN. After applying an extended ACL, traffic is still blocked from nursing workstations. The ACL was applied outbound instead of inbound on the wrong interface. Questions like this test ACL direction and placement rules.
What to study next
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this NSE4 question test?
System and Network Administration — This question tests System and Network Administration — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Under system > admin > settings, restrict administrative access to trusted hosts. — Option D is correct because the 'Trusted Hosts' feature under System > Admin > Settings allows you to restrict administrative access (HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, etc.) to specific source IP addresses or subnets. This is the intended method for limiting management access to a management subnet without affecting other traffic or interface configurations.
What should I do if I get this NSE4 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Same concept, more angles
1 more ways this is tested on NSE4
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company wants to ensure that administrative access to FortiGate is only allowed from the internal trusted network (192.168.1.0/24) and that all other access attempts are blocked. Which CLI command should the administrator configure first?
medium- ✓ A.config system admin; edit admin; set trusthost 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0; end
- B.config system interface; edit port1; set allowaccess ping https ssh; end
- C.config system global; set admin-http-redirect enable; end
- D.set admin-sport 443
Why A: Option A is correct because the `config system admin` command with `set trusthost` restricts administrative login attempts to only the specified source IP address or subnet. By setting `trusthost 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0`, the FortiGate will only allow admin access from the 192.168.1.0/24 network, blocking all other sources. This is the foundational step to enforce source-based access control for administrative interfaces.
Keep practising
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- Drag and drop the steps to perform a factory reset on FortiGate via CLI into the correct order.
- Refer to the exhibit. A network administrator configured an IPsec VPN between the main office and a branch office. Remot…
- Given the exhibit, a user in the internal network tries to SSH to a public server (203.0.113.10). What will happen and w…
- An administrator is configuring web filtering on a FortiGate. Which TWO statements about web filtering profiles are corr…
Last reviewed: Jun 24, 2026
This NSE4 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Fortinet certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the NSE4 exam.
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