Technical Tip: Maximum limit reached when adding network adapter in FortiGate VM in vSphere environment

[achu]

Description	This article describes the error message 'Failed to reconfigure virtual machine FortiGate. The number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller' when adding a new interface in FortiGate VM deployed in vSphere environment.
Scope	FortiOS VM.
Solution	Add a new network adapter in the FortiGate VM on the ESXi host. After saving the settings, an error message 'Failed to reconfigure virtual machine FortiGate. The number of virtual devices exceeds the maximum for a given controller' will be prompted.   The maximum number of network interfaces consumable by a FortiGate instance is 24 starting with FortiGate version 6.4.0. Prior versions allow 18. The minimum number is 1. The actual number of network interfaces attachable to instances varies depending on cloud platforms and instance types, and they may not allow to attach the greater number of interfaces to an instance than their maximum limits even while FortiGate allows up to 24. When deploying FortiGate VM in vSphere, the default number of interfaces is 10 and the limit for Virtual NICs per virtual machine is 10. If more than 10 interfaces are required, a workaround is to create a VLAN interface and attach it to any available physical interfaces. Related documents: Support up to 24 interfaces on FortiGate VM FortiGate Virtual Appliances vSphere 7.0 Configuration Limits