Technical Tip: How to download and import firmware images into FortiManager

jasonhong · ‎01-01-2023

Description

This article describes how to manually download firmware images from the Fortinet support portal and import them into FortiManager. For this demonstration, a FortiGate will be upgraded using a manually imported firmware image in FortiManager.

Scope

FortiManager.

Solution

When upgrading FortiGate via FortiManager via the toolbar option under More -> Firmware Upgrade, the user will be presented with a list of available firmware versions from FortiGuard. Once the preferred firmware version is selected, FortiManager will proceed to download the firmware image from the public FortiGuard servers before loading it into the FortiGate device for the upgrade process.

As an alternative for FortiManager to download the firmware image from the public FortiGuard server (check the related article to see if FortiManager is properly connected to FortiGuard), the user can manually download the firmware image from the Fortinet support portal (support.fortinet.com/Download/FirmwareImages.aspx) and then import the downloaded firmware image into FortiManager by navigating to FortiGuard -> Firmware Images -> Local Images and select 'Import'.

This benefits the user in terms of having the firmware image locally present in the FortiManager before the FortiGate device upgrade to reduce the time needed to have FortiManager download the firmware image from the public FortiGuard server during the upgrade process.

Once the firmware image is downloaded from the support portal and imported into FortiManager as a local image, the user will be able to select the imported local image in FortiManager during the upgrade process.