If you’ve ever had to create multiple geographic address groups in FortiGate, you know the pain. What should be a simple task turns into a tedious, time-consuming process that eats away at your productivity. That’s exactly why I built Forti-Geo-Creator – and today I want to share the story behind it.

Live application: fortigeocreator.busselot.org

The Problem: Death by a Thousand Clicks

Creating geo-address groups in FortiGate through the GUI is straightforward… for a single location. But what happens when you need to create groups for different purposes? Maybe you need one group for EU countries only, another for blocked regions, and yet another for allowed traffic sources. Suddenly, you’re looking at a serious time investment.

The old way? I would create each geo-address object one by one through the FortiGate GUI. Click, type a name, select a country, save. Repeat. And repeat again. And again.

The most frustrating part? You have to choose a name for each object individually, and you can only select one geo location at a time. When you need to add 27 EU countries to a group, that means 27 separate creation processes. It’s mind-numbing work that can easily consume 30 minutes or more – time that could be spent on actual security work.

The Spark: Building on Existing Ideas

I wasn’t the first person to recognize this problem. My colleague had created a helpful blog post titled Fortigate Script Geo Address Groups which served as a kind of cheatsheet for common geo-location configurations. It was genuinely useful and saved time for specific scenarios.

However, it was also limited. What if you needed a different combination of countries? What if you wanted to quickly create a custom group that wasn’t covered by the existing scripts? You’d still end up doing manual work or modifying scripts.

That’s when the idea hit me: What if I could build a visual tool where I simply click the countries I need, and it generates all the CLI commands for me automatically?

The Solution: Forti-Geo-Creator

I decided to build a web-based tool that would be:

• Instantly accessible – no installation required, just open it in a browser
• Visual and intuitive – click buttons instead of typing commands
• Comprehensive – all 253 FortiGate-supported geo codes included
• Smart – organized by meaningful regions (EU vs non-EU, for example)
• Fast – generate complete configurations in seconds

The result is Forti-Geo-Creator. Here’s what it does:

1. You enter a group name (once!)
2. You click on the countries you want to include
3. The tool automatically generates both the individual geo-address objects AND the address group
4. You copy the commands and paste them into your FortiGate CLI

That’s it. What used to take me 30 minutes now takes about 2 minutes. And there’s no room for typos or forgotten countries.

Key Features That Actually Matter

When building the tool, I focused on the features that would provide real value:

Regional Organization

Countries are grouped into meaningful categories like “European Union”, “Europe (non-EU)”, and “Eastern Europe & Russia”. This makes it trivial to select all EU countries with a single “Select all” click.

Search Functionality

Need to quickly find a specific country? Just type its name or ISO code. No more scrolling through endless lists.

Real-time Generation

The CLI commands update instantly as you select countries. You can see exactly what will be configured before you commit.

Clean Output

The generated commands are ready to paste directly into your FortiGate CLI or SSH session. No editing required.

Who Is This For?

Forti-Geo-Creator is for anyone who works with FortiGate firewalls and regularly needs to create geographic address groups. Whether you’re:

• Setting up geo-blocking for security purposes
• Implementing compliance requirements (GDPR, data residency laws)
• Managing multiple FortiGate deployments
• Working as an MSP handling different client requirements

If you’ve ever felt frustrated by the repetitive nature of geo-address creation, this tool is for you.

Try It Yourself

The tool is completely free and open source. You can:

• Use the hosted version at fortigeocreator.busselot.org
• Download the HTML file and run it locally
• Fork it on GitHub and customize it for your needs

Since it’s a single HTML file with no backend requirements, you can even host it on your internal network or use it offline.

What’s Next?

Honestly? I’m not planning any major new features at the moment. The tool does exactly what I needed it to do, and it does it well. Sometimes the best software is the software that solves a specific problem without feature bloat.

That said, I’m always open to suggestions. If you use the tool and feel something is missing, let me know. Maybe you need export to different formats, or perhaps integration with FortiManager would be useful. I’m happy to hear what would make your workflow even smoother.

Final Thoughts

Building Forti-Geo-Creator reminded me of an important lesson: sometimes the best tools are the ones that solve small, specific annoyances. A 30-minute task might not seem like much, but when you’re doing it regularly, that time adds up. More importantly, repetitive manual work is error-prone and mentally draining.

If you’re spending time on repetitive FortiGate configurations, I encourage you to try the tool. And if it saves you even a fraction of the time it saves me, it will have been worth building.

Have questions or suggestions? Feel free to reach out or open an issue on GitHub.

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Forti-Geo-Creator is open source and available on GitHub. It’s not affiliated with Fortinet, Inc.