Technical Tip: FortiDeceptor, Custom VM getting error 'Network timeout'

Description

This article describes that after following the custom VM guide, prepare the Deception OS successfully and after creating a new decoy, it failed to start and showed 'Network timeout'.

Scope

FortiDeceptor.

Solution

The problem will be in the ISO image itself.

The ISO image might support only UEFI 'New boot BIOS'. FortiDeceptor is supporting only MBR 'Standard old BIOS'.

Most of the standard ISO images support both UEFI and MBR. The original ISO images from the Microsoft website support both.

So the solution is to use the original ISO image, not a customized one and it is better to get it from the Microsoft website.

Also at this stage, the custom VM will use the FortiDeceptor management interface for communication, because it is not configured yet to use the deployment network interface. So if the firewall is configured for the FortiDeceptor management interface to block any kind of communication to an internal network or external network that the custom decoy needs, this can also cause the same problem.