Technical Tip: FortiGate access recovery through FortiGate Cloud after upgrading from free-tier to paid subscription
| Description | This article describes a recovery scenario where access to a FortiGate device was lost, no configuration backup was available, and the device was only registered in FortiGate Cloud with a free-tier license. |
| Scope | FortiGate devices registered in FortiGate Cloud without local access or configuration backup. |
| Solution | Note: this method requires that the FortiGate still has Internet access and shows as 'Online' in FortiGate Cloud. When a FortiGate device is registered in FortiGate Cloud with a free-tier license, 'write' access and management features such as script execution and auto backup are restricted. In this case:
Figure 1: (Legacy Portal).
Figure 2:
A FortiGate that is connected to FortiGate Cloud and has a valid subscription allows configuration management from FortiGate Cloud by default. Once the valid FortiGate Cloud subscription has been applied to the device:
Figure 3: Run the CLI script or log in with read-write permissions using Remote Access.
 If an existing administrator account is available, Remote Access can be used.  Remote Access or Scripts can both be used to run commands and change FortiGate configuration. The necessary changes to recover device access depends on the reasons why access is not currently available. If the administrator lost access because the previous administrator account was accidentally deleted or has an unknown password, follow the recovery procedure documented in Technical Tip: Recover access to FortiGate via FortiCloud. Using this method a new administrator account can be created, and access to the FortiGate restored. |
