About User Licenses; User Licensing When Authentication Is Required - Watchguard Firebox X15 User Manual

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User and Group Management

About user licenses

Your Firebox X Edge firewall is enabled with a set number of user licenses (also called nodes). The total number
of available sessions is determined by the Edge model you have, and any upgrade licenses you apply. The
number of licenses limits the number of sessions. To control the number of users at any time, close one or
more sessions. When you close a session, you make that user license available for another user. Sessions can
be closed in several ways:
If you require users to authenticate, the Firebox User can manually log out and return his or her license.
The Edge Administrator can close the session manually. He or she can close the session for a individual
user or close all sessions.
If you require users to authenticate, you can assign a maximum timeout and an idle timeout for
each user.
The Edge Administrator can set a global session maximum timeout.
You must reboot the Edge to close all sessions.
License upgrades are available from your reseller or from the WatchGuard web site:
http://www.watchguard.com/products/purchaseoptions.asp.

User licensing when authentication is required

User licensing works differently depending on whether Firebox User authentication is required to access the
external network:
When user authentication is not required to access the external network
A user license is used when user authentication for access to the external network is not required and
the Edge allows traffic to be passed from a computer on the trusted or optional network to the
external network. When a user browses the Internet, the Edge adds the computer IP address to a list
of users. When the limit is reached, all further connections from computers are denied.
When user authentication is required to access the external network.
A user license is used when user authentication is required for access to the external network, and a
Firebox User authenticates. In this case a license is used as soon as a Firebox User authenticates to the
Edge, whether or not traffic is passed from the user's computer to the external network.
If a single computer makes both a wired and wireless connection to a Firebox X Edge Wireless at the
same time, it uses two user licenses when it sends traffic to the external network.
User Guide 187