What this exam actually proves

The NSE4_FGT-6.0 exam validates that you can administer, operate, and troubleshoot a FortiGate running FortiOS 6.0 in a real network. This is not a theory-only security exam. It expects you to understand how the device behaves, how traffic flows through policy and profiles, and how to read FortiGate output well enough to fix common issues.

For this specific exam, focus on these capability areas:

Initial and ongoing FortiGate administration
Firewall policy behavior and NAT
Authentication and user awareness
Security profiles such as AV, web filtering, application control, IPS, and SSL inspection
Routing and SD-WAN fundamentals in FortiOS 6.0
IPsec VPN and SSL VPN
High availability and diagnostics
Basic FortiManager/FortiAnalyzer awareness where it overlaps with administration and logging workflows

This exam is best suited for:

Firewall administrators already touching FortiGate daily
Network engineers moving from Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, Sophos, or Check Point into Fortinet
SOC or security operations staff who need to understand how FortiGate enforces policy and generates logs

What makes this exam tricky is not obscure memorization. The hard part is that many questions describe a FortiGate symptom and ask what setting, flow, or dependency explains it. If you have only read the GUI labels without building and testing configurations, you will feel that gap quickly.

Build the FortiGate core first: interfaces, policies, NAT, sessions, and admin control

Start here. This is the foundation for everything else on fortinet-nse4_fgt-60. If you are weak in basic FortiGate administration, the security and VPN topics won’t stick because they all depend on policy flow.

Know the management plane cold

You should be comfortable with:

Administrative access on interfaces: HTTPS, SSH, PING, SNMP, FMG-Access
Administrator profiles and trusted hosts
VDOM concepts in FortiOS 6.0, including when multi-VDOM mode changes management behavior
Configuration backup and restore
Firmware basics and what changes after upgrades
The difference between GUI configuration, CLI configuration, and diagnostic commands

Expect questions around safe admin practices. Example: why an admin cannot connect over HTTPS even though the IP is reachable. Common answers involve interface administrative access not enabled, trusted hosts mismatch, or policy assumptions where none apply because local-in traffic is different.

Internalize FortiGate packet flow

You need to understand the order of operations at a practical level:

Traffic arrives on an interface.
Routing decision is considered.
Firewall policy matching occurs.
NAT is applied if configured.
Security profiles inspect if attached.
Session is created and tracked.

This matters because many exam questions are built around why traffic is denied, untranslated, or not inspected.

Study these policy details carefully:

Top-down first-match policy evaluation
Source interface, destination interface, source address, destination address, schedule, service, action
Implicit deny
Identity-based policy behavior
Policy logging options
Central NAT vs policy NAT concepts in FortiOS 6.0
VIPs and DNAT
IP pools and SNAT

NAT and VIP questions are common for a reason

FortiGate NAT is straightforward once you stop treating it like a side note. Learn these distinctions:

Source NAT on outbound traffic using interface address or IP pool
Destination NAT using Virtual IPs (VIPs)
How a VIP is referenced in a firewall policy
Why a route still matters even when VIP translation exists
The difference between port forwarding and one-to-one NAT

You should be able to explain scenarios like:

Internet users can reach the public IP, but the server does not respond
Outbound traffic matches policy but uses the wrong source address
A VIP exists, but no policy references it
Return traffic fails because routing is wrong, not because NAT is wrong

Sessions and troubleshooting output

This exam rewards candidates who understand session handling and diagnostics. At minimum, know what these tools do:

get system interface
get router info routing-table all
diagnose debug flow
diagnose sniffer packet any
get firewall policy
get system performance status

You do not need to memorize every parameter, but you do need to know when to use them.

diagnose debug flow: best for policy match, routing decision, NAT, deny reasons
diagnose sniffer packet: best for proving traffic arrival and direction
routing-table output: best for next-hop and route selection issues
session awareness: understand that existing sessions may survive policy changes differently than you expect

If you can read a debug flow and tell whether the problem is routing, policy, or NAT, you are on solid ground for a large portion of the exam.

Security profiles in FortiOS 6.0: where most candidates lose easy points

Once the firewall core is clear, move to the feature set Fortinet is known for: UTM/security profiles. The exam expects more than definitions. You need to know where profiles are attached, what dependencies they have, and why inspection fails.

Antivirus, web filter, application control, IPS

You should understand the purpose and practical behavior of each:

Antivirus: file inspection, protocol support, proxy vs flow inspection implications
Web Filter: category-based filtering, static URL filter, rating errors, allow/warn/block/monitor actions
Application Control: signatures, application groups, monitor vs block, shaping interactions
IPS: signatures, sensors, severity-based actions, false positive awareness

Do not study these as isolated menus. Study them as policy-attached controls.

Questions often test whether you know:

A profile must be applied to a firewall policy to do anything
Some features depend on inspection mode
SSL-encrypted traffic limits visibility unless SSL/SSH inspection is configured appropriately
Logging settings affect what you can verify later in FortiView and logs

SSL inspection is a high-value topic

This is one of the most exam-relevant topics because it connects policy, certificates, user experience, and content inspection.

Know the difference between:

Certificate inspection
Deep inspection

And know the consequences:

Certificate inspection gives limited visibility into encrypted traffic
Deep inspection allows broader content inspection but requires trust deployment and can break applications if mishandled
Without proper SSL inspection, web filtering, AV, and application identification may not work as expected on HTTPS traffic

You should also understand common reasons for SSL inspection failure:

Client does not trust the FortiGate CA certificate
Certificate pinning or application incompatibility
Policy does not reference the intended SSL/SSH inspection profile
Traffic bypasses the policy you thought it matched

DNS filter, email filter, and explicit proxy basics

These may not dominate the exam, but you should know where they fit.

DNS filtering in FortiOS 6.0 for domain-level control
Email filter concepts for SMTP/POP3/IMAP inspection where relevant
Explicit proxy basics and when user-based web control is easier there than with standard firewall mode

Authentication and identity-aware policy

FortiGate often ties security decisions to users and groups. Study:

Local users and groups
Remote authentication basics: LDAP, RADIUS, TACACS+ awareness
FSSO concepts and user/group mapping
Captive portal basics
Identity-based policies

Be able to answer practical questions such as:

Why a user-based policy is not matching
Why a remote group is visible but not authorizing as expected
Why traffic is allowed anonymously when you expected authentication

A good exam habit: whenever you study a security profile, ask yourself four things:

Where is it applied?
What traffic can it actually inspect?
What logs prove it worked?
What common dependency breaks it?

Routing, SD-WAN, and path selection: the network side of NSE4

A lot of security-focused candidates underprepare here. Don’t. The fortinet-nse4_fgt-60 exam expects you to be comfortable with FortiGate as a routed device, not just a filtering box.

Static and dynamic routing fundamentals

You need to know:

Static routes and administrative distance
Default route behavior
How FortiGate chooses the best route
Basic policy routes and when they override normal routing logic
ECMP awareness

You should also know the exam-level basics of dynamic routing as implemented on FortiGate, especially:

OSPF
BGP at a conceptual and practical configuration level

You are unlikely to be asked deep service-provider BGP design questions. You are very likely to be asked why a route is preferred, advertised, or missing.

SD-WAN in FortiOS 6.0

FortiOS 6.0 brought a stronger SD-WAN story, and you should expect objective coverage around it.

Study these items carefully:

SD-WAN member interfaces
Performance SLAs and health checks
Rule-based path selection
Load balancing versus best-quality path use
How SD-WAN interacts with static routes and policy behavior

Common exam-style scenarios:

Traffic is still taking the MPLS link instead of broadband
SLA health checks mark a member down unexpectedly
A rule matches voice traffic differently from bulk traffic
Default route exists, but SD-WAN rules still influence forwarding

Read the routing outputs, not just the GUI

You should be able to interpret:

get router info routing-table all
get router info ospf neighbor
get router info bgp summary

Again, you do not need to memorize every field. You need to know what healthy output looks like and what kind of issue each command reveals.

The exam often blends routing with security policy. Example: traffic is allowed by policy but still fails because there is no return route, the wrong next hop is selected, or SD-WAN health status changed path selection.

Remote access and site-to-site: IPsec and SSL VPN topics to master

VPN is a major scoring area on this exam. Fortinet expects an NSE4 to configure and troubleshoot both IPsec VPN and SSL VPN on FortiGate.

IPsec VPN: phase 1, phase 2, selectors, and routing

Master these terms until they are automatic:

Phase 1: peer, interface, authentication, IKE version, proposal, DH group, lifetime
Phase 2: selectors, proposals, PFS, lifetime
Tunnel interface versus policy-based thinking, with FortiOS 6.0 centered on route-based operation
Static routes over the VPN interface
Firewall policies for VPN traffic
NAT exemption logic where relevant

You should understand how these mismatches break tunnels:

Pre-shared key mismatch
Proposal mismatch
Phase 2 selector mismatch
Dead peer detection and negotiation issues
Missing routes or missing policies even when the tunnel is technically up

Be ready for troubleshooting questions around tunnel status. A tunnel showing up does not guarantee data passes. Often the real issue is selectors, policy, or routing.

SSL VPN: web mode and tunnel mode

Study:

SSL VPN portal types
Web mode vs tunnel mode
User/group mapping to portals
Authentication sources
Split tunnel behavior
Address assignment and portal configuration
Required firewall policies after SSL VPN authentication

Typical exam traps:

User authenticates successfully but cannot access internal resources
Portal mapping sends the user to the wrong portal
Tunnel mode connects but routes are missing on the client side
Access works for one subnet but not another due to policy or route omissions

Diagnostics for VPN

Know the purpose of common VPN troubleshooting commands and logs. You do not need to become a CLI wizard, but you should know how to isolate whether the problem is:

Negotiation
Authentication
Phase mismatch
Routing
Policy

If you can mentally separate “tunnel establishment” from “traffic forwarding through the tunnel,” you will avoid the mistakes many candidates make.

HA, logging, and visibility: small domains that still show up

These topics may not carry the same weight as policy, profiles, and VPNs, but they are too visible in FortiGate operations to ignore.

High Availability in FortiGate

Know the basics of FortiGate HA:

Active-passive fundamentals
Heartbeat interfaces
Session synchronization concepts
Device priority and role election basics
Reserved management interface awareness
What settings must align across cluster members

Questions often focus on behavior rather than deep deployment design. Example: which device becomes primary, why a failover happened, or what traffic/session impact to expect.

Logging, FortiView, and analyzer awareness

You should understand:

Local logging versus remote logging
Log categories and policy logging choices
FortiView as an operational visibility tool
Basic FortiAnalyzer integration concepts
Why missing logs often come down to policy log settings or profile logging choices

FortiManager basics

This exam is not a FortiManager administration exam, but you should know the basics of centralized management:

FortiGate registration to FortiManager
Policy/package management awareness
Why centralized management changes where configuration should be performed

Treat this as supporting knowledge, not your primary study block.

A study plan that matches your background

This exam is manageable if you study in the right order. It becomes messy if you jump straight into VPNs and profiles without understanding traffic flow.

If you already administer FortiGate: 2 to 3 weeks

Use this plan if you have at least six months of hands-on FortiGate work.

Week 1

Review interface settings, admin access, policies, NAT, VIPs
Lab outbound NAT and inbound VIP publishing
Practice diagnose debug flow on allow and deny cases
Review routing tables, static routes, policy routes, SD-WAN rules

Week 2

Work through security profiles: AV, web filter, app control, IPS, SSL inspection
Build at least one identity-based policy using local users or LDAP in lab
Configure IPsec site-to-site and SSL VPN remote access
Break each config intentionally, then fix it

Week 3

Review HA, logging, FortiView, FortiAnalyzer/FortiManager basics
Do timed practice questions
Revisit weak areas only

If you know firewalls but are new to Fortinet: 4 to 6 weeks

This is the most common path.

Phase 1: Days 1-10

Learn FortiGate object model: addresses, services, schedules, interfaces, zones, policies
Learn FortiOS navigation and equivalent CLI commands
Practice NAT, VIP, policy order, and session behavior

Phase 2: Days 11-20

Study security profiles and SSL inspection thoroughly
Add authentication sources and identity-based policy
Learn logging and FortiView correlation

Phase 3: Days 21-30

Static routing, OSPF/BGP basics, SD-WAN rules and health checks
IPsec VPN and SSL VPN setup plus troubleshooting

Phase 4: Final 1-2 weeks

HA basics
Practice exams and command interpretation
Focus on troubleshooting scenarios, not memorizing menu names

If you are junior or mostly theoretical: 6 to 8 weeks

You need lab time, not more notes.

Spend your first two weeks only on:

Interface configuration
Policies
NAT
Routing basics
Reading logs and debug flow

If those are shaky, the rest of the exam will feel random.

Best order of study

Use this order exactly:

Administration and interface setup
Firewall policies and NAT/VIP
Routing and SD-WAN
Security profiles and SSL inspection
Authentication and identity-based controls
IPsec VPN and SSL VPN
HA, logging, FortiAnalyzer/FortiManager basics
Timed question practice

That sequence mirrors how the product works in production.

Resources worth your time for fortinet-nse4_fgt-60

Use official Fortinet material first. Third-party summaries are fine for review, but this exam is specific enough that unofficial shortcuts often miss FortiOS 6.0 behavior.

Official resources

Fortinet Training Institute: the official NSE 4 FortiGate Security 6.0 and NSE 4 FortiGate Infrastructure 6.0 courses. These map closely to the actual exam scope.
FortiOS 6.0 Administration Guide in the Fortinet documentation library
FortiOS 6.0 Handbook sections relevant to policies, security profiles, routing, VPN, and HA
FortiGate CLI Reference for FortiOS 6.0
Fortinet Cookbook articles for task-based configuration walkthroughs
Fortinet KB / Technical Tip articles for troubleshooting edge cases

Good hands-on practice options

FortiGate VM in a lab if you have access through your employer or partner program
EVE-NG or GNS3 with FortiGate VM for routing and VPN scenarios
A small two-VM or three-VM lab to simulate LAN, WAN, and remote peer/client traffic

Practice question use

You mentioned 127 practice questions on Truekia. Use them late, not early.

Good use:

After finishing each domain, do a small set and review why each wrong answer is wrong
In the final week, do timed mixed sets
Track misses by domain: policy/NAT, profiles, routing, VPN, HA/logging

Bad use:

Memorizing answer patterns without recreating the scenario in a lab

One book worth pairing with the official docs

There is no single perfect FortiOS 6.0 exam book that beats the official training, but for firewall and VPN fundamentals you can supplement with strong network security references if needed. Still, for this exam, official Fortinet training and documentation should be your primary source.

How to handle the exam itself

Fortinet exams tend to reward precise reading. Small wording differences matter.

During the exam

Read the scenario twice if it includes routing, NAT, or VPN. Those are the questions where one missing dependency changes the answer.
If two answers both sound possible, ask: Which one matches FortiGate behavior in FortiOS 6.0 specifically?
Eliminate options that ignore packet flow. A lot of wrong answers sound plausible until you trace interface, route, policy, NAT, and profile order.

Watch for these recurring traps

Assuming a security profile works without being attached to a policy
Forgetting that HTTPS traffic needs SSL inspection for deeper visibility
Confusing tunnel up with traffic passing in IPsec
Blaming policy when the real problem is route selection or SD-WAN rule evaluation
Missing the role of VIP objects in inbound policy matching
Forgetting that user-based access depends on authentication source, group mapping, and the correct policy structure

Last 48 hours

Do not try to learn new features. Instead:

Review policy matching, NAT, VIPs, and debug flow interpretation
Review SSL inspection dependencies
Review IPsec phase 1/phase 2 mismatch symptoms
Review SD-WAN member and SLA logic
Review HA role and failover basics

Final advice from real-world prep experience

Candidates who pass comfortably usually do three things:

They build at least one full FortiGate lab from scratch.
They practice troubleshooting, not just configuration.
They study by traffic flow, not by menu.

If you remember one rule for fortinet-nse4_fgt-60, make it this: when a question looks complicated, reduce it to interface -> route -> policy -> NAT -> profile -> session/logs. That mental model solves a large share of the exam.