Technical Tip: FGVMSL License

When a new FortiGate virtual machine is provisioned, it may display a license that shows in red as follows:

FGVMSL stands for 'FortiGate Virtual Machine Subscription License' and identifies that the FortiGate is running as a Virtual Appliance with a 'Subscription License', (as opposed to a BYOL 'Bring Your Own License'). 

If a virtual FortiGate shows a license like this in red, it means that it is still running the FortiGate under an evaluation license, as the VM has not yet retrieved a valid license.

Evaluation licenses have various restrictions including feature restrictions, resource cap, time limits and do not include support.

If a FortiGate has been applied with a valid license, or deployed via the marketplace with billing enabled and still shows the red warning, run the following command to immediately fetch the license from FortiGuard.

execute update-now

This will trigger the FortiGate to contact FortiGuard, download the correct license file, and apply it along with any contact entitlements.

To troubleshoot issues with VM licensing, see Technical Tip: FortiGate-VM License management, validation, and troubleshooting.