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Enterprise
New Member
July 28, 2019
Question

VPN Client Full Featured vs. VPN Only

  • July 28, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 66760 views

Hi,

 

I would like to point out, that the situation regarding the different versions of the "Fortinet VPN Client" is more than confusing:

 

1. There is the full featured FortiClient: keeps bugging the users for the Telemetry registration. If registered to an EMS server, the client can not be upgraded though automated MSI deployment solutions (like GPO Deployment or WPKG)...... (you must disconnect manually the EMS Server first, than you can uninstall and run your deployment scenario....).... Why? For me, that is unusable for large scale deployments.....

 

2. Than there is more or less a "VPN only" version available: The first problem is, that there is no suitable automated deployment scenario starting from version 6.X.X. There is only an "Online Installer" (https://www.forticlient.com/downloads) available, so if you deploy 30 Clients, it takes 3 days to do so....   The second issue is: Why the unprofessional advertisement "Upgrade to the full version to access additional features and receive technical support."???  Is it really necessary to slam the user in the face with this every time he opens the VPN client?

 

Could you please make an MSI for the "VPN only version" available, that can be deployed though GPOs? 

 

From my point of view the current situation is more than User and Admin unfriendly. 

 

Kind Greetings, James

 

2 replies

bbilut
bbilut
New Member
July 29, 2019

Having just switched from Palo Alto to Fortigate I was very disappointed with the SSL VPN client and that more thought was not put in to enterprise customers needing to deploy the client to many hundred or thousands of computers with a desktop management system and lack of available msi installers for the VPN only client. It's my understanding with the full featured client the deployment tool will not work after 6.0

Papperlapapp
Papperlapapp
New Member
July 30, 2019

You could get the VPN-only offline installer (FortiClientVPNSetup_6.2.0_x64.exe) from the FortiClient website a couple of weeks ago. Providing only an online installer now is shocking bad news.

But even with the offline installer, exporting/importing the configuration didn't work here. We had to copy the whole "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Fortinet\FortiClient" key to get the config running after deployment, which only works after adding some delay (using 2 minutes here) for this deployment step, as the installer seems to have some issues with returning a proper return code when the client is installed successfully. I haven't seen an installer running that silly in a decade ...

 

We would love to see a proper VPN-only msi installer too.

 

zafer
zafer
New Member
September 17, 2019

I 100% agree with you.

 

This is a total mess I think...and Support, well they are not supporting...

bbilut
bbilut
New Member
September 17, 2019

Seems like they want everyone to purchase EMS server????

JayL
JayL
New Member
September 18, 2019

After testing the firewall for a month, I have to say the firewall itself is pretty good but the VPN part is pretty poor, including both ssl and ipsec.

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