FortiGate SSL VPN Web Portal With Resources Across an IPsec VPN Tunnel

If you are using the SSL VPN Web Portal, and you are allowing access to resources that are accessible over a site to site VPN tunnel from the FortiGate, there are several considerations to keep in mind.

With the web portal, the firewall will proxy the connection from the user to the actual resources. If the resource is on the local network and the firewall has a route to the destination, it will source traffic from one of it’s interfaces that is “closest” to the end device. This may be the local LAN/internal interface.

However, if the resource is available only across a site to site VPN tunnel, then the firewall will try and source this traffic from the “closest” IP to the site to site VPN tunnel. If there is no IP address explicitly configured on the VPN tunnel itself, then it will choose the public IP used in the VPN tunnel termination. Many times, the public IP isn’t allowed to pass traffic across the actual VPN, and so this will be rejected.

The best thing to do would be to assign an IP address to the tunnel interface itself. When this is configured, the firewall will use this IP address to proxy and source the traffic from. Additionally, you must make sure that this IP address is allowed on the VPN as far as the proxy-IDs, routes on the other end, and any security rules on both ends that control traffic access.

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