> Chapter 21 - Security Profiles > Application control

Application control

Using the application control Security Profile feature, your FortiGate unit can detect and take action against network traffic depending on the application generating the traffic. Based on FortiGate Intrusion Protection protocol decoders, application control is a user-friendly and powerful way to use Intrusion Protection features to log and manage the behavior of application traffic passing through the FortiGate unit. Application control uses IPS protocol decoders that can analyze network traffic to detect application traffic even if the traffic uses non-standard ports or protocols.

The FortiGate unit can recognize the network traffic generated by a large number of applications. You can create application control sensors that specify the action to take with the traffic of the applications you need to manage and the network on which they are active, and then add application control sensors to the firewall policies that control the network traffic you need to monitor.

Fortinet is constantly increasing the list of applications that application control can detect by adding applications to the FortiGuard Application Control Database. Because intrusion protection protocol decoders are used for application control, the application control database is part of the FortiGuard Intrusion Protection System Database and both of these databases have the same version number.

You can find the version of the application control database that is installed on your unit, by going to the License Information dashboard widget and find IPS Definitions version.

You can go to the FortiGuard Application Control List to see the complete list of applications supported by FortiGuard. This web page lists all of the supported applications. You can select any application name to see details about the application.

If you enable virtual domains (VDOMs) on the Fortinet unit, you need to configure application control separately for each virtual domain.

The following topics are included in this section:

Application control concepts
Application considerations
Application traffic shaping
Application control monitor
Enable application control
Application control examples

To view the version of the application control database installed on your FortiGate unit, go to the License Information dashboard widget and find the IPS Definitions version.

To see the complete list of applications supported by FortiGuard Application Control go to the FortiGuard Application Control List. This web page lists all of the supported applications. You can select any application name to see details about the application.