Chapter reading, lab work, drills, review, and Notion documentation.
Fortinet NSE 8 v4
Building the path to NSE 8, one lab at a time.
A technical journal for the Core module and Secure Networking specialization: chapter notes, lab exams, troubleshooting drills, homelab decisions, and weekly progress.
Current Mission
Renew the foundations, then push into Core.
The current certs are valid, but the plan is to retake the relevant tracks on 7.6 and use that study as the runway for NSE 8 v4.
NSE 4 7.6, NSE 7 EFW 7.6, NSE 8 Core, then Secure Networking specialization.
Core attempt around month 9, specialization work immediately after Core pass.
Workflow
Read, document, lab, drill.
Every chapter becomes a note set, a lab exam, five drill questions, and a coaching-log entry.
1. Chapter Notes
Concepts, CLI, gotchas, quick-reference tables, and acronyms are captured after each chapter.
2. Lab Exam
Scenario-based tasks with safety tags for live gear, spare gear, or Proxmox VMs.
3. Drill Questions
Five questions focused on troubleshooting logic, command output, and NSE-style traps.
4. Coaching Log
Wrong answers become a remediation queue instead of being allowed to evaporate.
Homelab
Useful, but treated with respect.
The live lab is production-ish, so disruptive practice belongs on spare gear or VMs.
Live Stack
FG-60F, FSW-108F, FAP-231F, FEX-40F, and Proxmox-hosted Fortinet VMs.
Read-only checksLow-risk validation
Spare Bench
FG-60F and FSW-108F reserved for disruptive routing, HA, reset, and break/fix practice.
Destructive labsFirmware tests
VM Work
FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiAuthenticator, FortiSandbox, and future service integrations.
ProxmoxSnapshots first