FortiOS supports creating a software switch by grouping two or more FortiGate physical interfaces into a single virtual or software switch interface. All of the interfaces in this virtual switch act like interfaces in a hardware switch in that they all have the same IP address and can be connected to the same network. You create a software switch interface from the CLI using the command config system switch-interface.

The software switch is a bridge group of several interfaces, and the FortiGate CPU maintains the mac-port table for this bridge. As a result of this CPU involvement, traffic processed by a software switch interface is not offloaded to network processors.