Technical Tip: FortiGate USB port for USB connections, key usage

[AlexC-FTNT]

Description

This article describes the available usage for USB drives or USB flash sticks, general recommendations, and other helpful guides in relation to available USB ports and their usage.

Scope

FortiOS (Hardware versions with USB port).
FortiOS VM is not fully supported. Some limitations: Technical Tip: USB stick passthrough on Proxmox.

Solution

USB port usage and scope:

Backup and restore full or VDOM configuration:

• Technical Tip: Backup and restore configuration file from a thumb drive (USB)
• Technical Tip: Backup FortiGate config on a USB thumb drive (CLI/Console and GUI)
• Performing a configuration backup

Load firmware and config at boot:

• Technical Tip: Automatic installation of Firmware and system configuration

Connect an externally supported 3G/4G modem or use for USB Tethering:

• Technical Tip: How to view the 3G/4G supported modem list 
• Troubleshooting Tip: Modems on a FortiGate with a USB port
• Technical Tip: Configure Huawei E3276 USB LTE Modem

USB port detection:

• Technical Tip: FortiGate USB stick detection

USB port limitations:

• Most FortiGate units support only FAT16/FAT32 filesystems for filesystem restore (USB drives under 4GB).
• They are not intended to expand storage.
• They are not intended to periodically back up logs (this feature was available for a short time in particular FortiOS versions).
  Logs could be backed up on a USB in FortiOS v5.0 to v6.2: Technical Tip: Standard procedure to format a FortiGate Log Disk, log backup from disk.

• Most FortiGate units are also not intended to have a USB stick/drive permanently plugged in (It will eventually fail due to heating or repeated checks - FortiGate may log the event and/or reboot when this happens).

USB Management port (not intended for USB storage):

• Technical Tip: Using the USB MGMT Console port
• Technical Note: Using FortiExplorer to have Telnet and HTTP access to a FortiGate