Cisco Firewall Management Center (FMC) for FTD

Cisco Firewall Management Center (FMC) is a centralized management solution for larger, complex deployments of Cisco’s Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW), offering advanced threat protection, comprehensive reporting, and detailed policy management across multiple devices. In contrast, Cisco Firewall Device Manager (FDM) is a local management tool for individual Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) devices, suited for smaller deployments with basic configuration needs and simpler environments.

FMC is ideal for enterprises requiring extensive control and reporting, while FDM is best for small businesses or branch offices managing a single device.

Installation

Deploy the OVA and configure the basic configurations

Then power on the FMC

After a while, the FMC is now accessible on web browser with credentials set on the OVA deployment

Adding FTD to FMC

Connect to FTD CLI, then run this command

configure manager add 198.18.134.234 helena

On FMC, go to Device » Device Management » Add Device, fill in the details

Now the FTD has been onboarded

Configuring Basic Internet Access

First configure the Uplink and Downlink Interfaces

Next configure the Static Default Route going out to the Uplink Interface

After that, go to Policies » Access Control to configure the Firewall Policy Rules

Then on Device » NAT, configure the NAT Rules

Finally, hit Save and Deploy the changes to the FTD

Now we can see the Downlink Host has an internet access

On FMC, go to Analysis » Events to see the traffic logs

And on Overview » Dashboards to see the overall dashboards