Firewall session setup rate
The number of sessions that can be established in a set period of time is useful information. A session is an end-to-end TCP/IP connection for communication with a limited lifespan. If you record the setup rate during normal operation, when you experience problems you have that setup rate with the current number to see if its very different. While this will not solve your problems, it can be a useful step to help you define your problem.
A reduced firewall session setup rate could be the result of a number of things from a lack of system resources on the FortiGate unit, to reaching the limit of your session count for your VDOM.
To view your session setup rate - web-based manager
1. Got to System > Dashboard.
2. Maximize Top Sources
3. Read the New Sessions per Second value displayed at the bottom.
If the Top Sessions widget is not visible on your dashboard, go to the + Widget button at the top of the window. When a window pops up, select Top Sessions for it to be added to the dashboard.
To view your session setup rate method 1- CLI
FGT# get sys performance status
CPU states: 0% user 0% system 0% nice 100% idle
Memory states: 10% used
Average network usage: 0 kbps in 1 minute, 0 kbps in 10 minutes,
13 kbps in 30 minutes
Average sessions: 31 sessions in 1 minute, 30 sessions in 10
minutes, 31 sessions in 30 minutes
Average session setup rate: 0.5 sessions per second in last 1
minute, 0 sessions per second in last 10 minutes, 0 sessions per
second in last 30 minutes
Virus caught: 0 total in 1 minute
IPS attacks blocked: 0 total in 1 minute
Uptime: 44 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes
The information you are looking for is the Average sessions section, highlighted in the above output. In this example you can see there were 31 sessions in 1 minute, or an average of 0.5 sessions per second. The values for 10 minutes and 30 minutes allow you to take a longer average for a more reliable value if your FortiGate unit is working at maximum capacity. The smallest FortiGate unit can have 1 000 sessions established per second across the unit.
Remember that session setup rate is a global command. If you have multiple VDOMs configured with many sessions in each one, the session setup rate per VDOM will be slower than if there were no VDOMs configured.