How to Navigate the Fortigate Web Filter


Introduction

Fortigate Category Descriptions: http://www.fortiguard.com/webfiltering/webfiltering_info.html#dbcategories

When browsing to any website, everything goes through the Fortigate for filtering to decide whether it is a site allowed by your district administration.  The administrators in each district set policies for which websites are allowed and which are blocked. They then submit this information to REMC1 for blocking or allowing in the firewall.  

If you do navigate to a blocked website you will get a page that looks similar to this:

Fortigate blocked page display

If you feel that the blocked website is appropriate and pertinent, you have two options for gaining access:

  • request the page be unblocked permanently or 

  • have an administrator temporarily override the filter

Unblock Requests

If you come across a site that you feel should be unblocked permanently you may perform the following steps to request access:  

  • To get the requested site unblocked, contact REMC1 via the "REMC support" link like shown in the above image; you can also click the link to have the web page re-evaluated by Fortiguard as well.  
  • The REMC#1 Network Administrators will then contact your school's Administration to determine whether it is within your district's policy to allow access to the site.  

  • If allowed, REMC1 will unblock access to the website permanently.

Misclassified Blocks

It is possible that a site is miscategorized. When a site is blocked it will also list the category under which it was blocked. If you believe the website is in the wrong category visit:  http://url.fortinet.net/rate/submit.php  

Fortigate will reply within 24 hours via email to verify the recategorization.

Administrator Overrides

To override a given website you must click on the "Override" link on the lower right hand corner of the webpage. (Not all districts allow for overrides.  Please review with your district administrator for specific district web filtering policies).  

The override link will bring you to a web page that looks like this:

Fortigate administrator override page display


In the above screen, you will need to type in the override username and password which can be requested from REMC1 support. You can specify the amount of time you want the site to be unblocked for but if you proceed without specifying a time duration it will default to a time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.  

The website will be unblocked:  

  • ONLY on the computer where the override was enabled 
  • ONLY for that website 
  • ONLY for the time specified  

The above applies for every district EXCEPT for L'Anse; since L'Anse schools has its own firewall any overrides they make will override the site for the whole school.

Security Certificates

After clicking on the "Override" button a security box will open. It will explain that this website may be harmful. You will have to either accept or deny this message that your web browser gives you. it is OK to accept this message to proceed to the website. If you choose to decline the warning you will not be able to go there.  

To accept a the security warning in Internet Explorer:  

(scroll down to see how to accept a security warning in Mozilla Firefox)