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ShmulyRosenzweig
ShmulyRosenzweig
Visitor III
February 27, 2025
Question

Forticlient EMS - 'Manage Deployment' usage and issues (installing other features)

  • February 27, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 2090 views

Hello Community!

I am attempting to install additional features to my Forticlients in the field, specifically, the SSOMA feature.

I have created a package with the features I want.

I have created a "Managed Deployment" and linked it to an OU that has clients that are going to need the feature, and the deployment is Enabled.

In the EMS, I can see the endpoints being notified they need the install (the endpoint does show in the client that the administrator has scheduled an install).  The installation finishes - the EMS reports (with a green checkmark) that the deployment was successful.

 

The feature that I pushed, unfortunately, does not appear, even after reboot.

 

What am I doing incorrectly?

Is there a log I should be looking at? 

Attempting to push the package via a 3rd party agent using msiexec (with the transforms.mst) shows that the local .mst file from C:\windows\installer\ is being used, which doesn't have the feature needed.

Am I using this "Managed Install" feature incorrectly?

How are others adding features to EMS FortiClients in the field that need it (in an automated fashion)?

 

3 replies

Stephen_G
Moderator
Stephen_G
Moderator
March 2, 2025

Hello,

 

Thank you for using the Community Forum. I will seek to get you an answer or help. We will reply to this thread with an update as soon as possible.


Thanks,

Stephen_G - Fortinet Community Team
    ShmulyRosenzweig
    ShmulyRosenzweigAuthor
    Visitor III
    March 3, 2025

    Little more flavor to the issue:

     

    Opened a ticket with support and they informed me that the Managed Upgrade feature of the EMS is only to support moving to new versions of the FortiClient; not for installing new features.  They did mention that if a new feature is included in your package while upgrading, the new feature will be installed (no dice for me as I'm on the latest).

     

    They also indicated that attempting to misexec install features in not supported - the only supported method for getting new features is to do a managed uninstall, and reinstall with the features that you need.  They did express installing pretty much all the other features, for this exact reason.

     

    They also mentioned that you MAY be able to misexec install features, but, this is not something they support.

     

    We are still going to try this method of getting the feature to install as we are on a tight deadline to get this product rolled out.  Any help or comments regarding is appreciated!

    Edit: spelling mistakes

    ShmulyRosenzweig
    ShmulyRosenzweigAuthor
    Visitor III
    March 10, 2025

    Alright, for anyone else following along, we tested this in our lab and came out with some positive results.  WARNING: I'm not responsible if you brick your environment, or anything else that happens - we tested this, but I'm not sure what long-term impacts this will have on an environment.  Conventional wisdom says not to mess with anything in your C:\windows\installer directory... we are doing that here.

     

    1. get the product GUID:

     

    get-wmiobject Win32_Product | Sort-Object -Property Name |Format-Table IdentifyingNumber, Name, LocalPackage -AutoSize

     

    it will be the "FortiClient" named line - you can probably filter on this for automation...  These are all the same in our environment

     

    2. run the following commands: (see comments for details, obviously, the 'meat' of this is the replacement of the MST, and running the msiexec to install the feature.)

     

    #create a directory to work in New-Item -Path "C:\" -Name "ems" -ItemType "Directory" Set-Location C:\ems #download the MSI from your ems server invoke-webrequest -uri "https://ems.mycompany.com:10443/installers/default/wf-ra-reg-ma2/msi/x64/FortiClient.msi" -outfile C:\ems\FortiClient.msi #download the MST from your ems server invoke-webrequest -uri "https://ems.mycompany.com:10443/installers/default/wf-ra-reg-ma2/msi/x64/FortiClient.mst" -outfile C:\ems\FortiClient.mst #rename the cached mst on the local system Rename-Item -Path 'C:\windows\installer\{WHATEVER-YOUR-PRODUCT-CODE-IS}\forticlient.mst' -NewName 'C:\windows\installer\WHATEVER-YOUR-PRODUCT-CODE-IS}\forticlient.old.mst' #copy over the new mst into the cached directory Copy-Item -Path "C:\ems\FortiClient.mst" -Destination 'C:\windows\installer\{WHATEVER-YOUR-PRODUCT-CODE-IS}\forticlient.mst' #run the installer msiexec /i "C:\ems\FortiClient.msi" ADDLOCAL=Feature_SingleSignOnMobility /qn /L*vx! C:\ems\fortiems-install.log.txt #check if it installed Test-path 'C:\Program Files\Fortinet\FortiClient\FSSOMA.exe'

     

     

    Clients immediately started reporting the feature in EMS.

    I welcome any comments or discussion - we are continuing to test but will probably be rolling this out in short order.

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