FortiSwitch Power Event

[MontanaMike]

I recently had a UPS go down and when we recovered the power to the FortiSwitch 448E that was connected to it, the switch came up but appeared to not work at all.  I couldn't get to on any management interface except using the console port in the rear with a serial cable.  Anyway, what I discovered was that when power was lost and it booted up again, it booted from the secondary image with a stock config file.  I was able to reboot off the primary image and it appears "normal" however I need to do some testing before I start moving devices and users back to it.

My question is:  Why did it load off the secondary and how can I prevent it (and my other FortiSwitches) from doing that again?  I noted the 'set image-rotation' command is set to "enable" by default but I know little about what this does and why anyone would want the image to rotate each time at boot.  I believe the current firmware on it was 7.2.3.

Also, I want to make sure my other FortiSwitches won't behave like this in the event of a power disruption so any suggestions would be much appreciated.  

[Anthony_E]

Hello Mike,

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,

[MontanaMike]

FYI: I'm working on the postmortem for this crash and I've removed it from production because I don't fully trust that if it does reboot again, it won't come up on the secondary config that is blank.  However, in my lab, I've done graceful reboots and ungraceful (unplugged the power) and it seems to reboot using it's normal config.

Ideally I'd like to make sure the rest of FortiSwitches (about 10 of them total) don't behave the way this one did as we are going into spring/summer and power outages are more frequent due to severe weather events.

[Dhruvin_patel]

Greetings!

When a FortiSwitch boots from the secondary image with a stock configuration after a power event, it may be due to the image rotation feature. Here's how you can address this issue:

- The `set image-rotation` command, when enabled, allows the switch to boot from the alternate partition if the current one fails. This is a safeguard to ensure the switch can still operate if the primary image is corrupted.

- If you want to prevent the switch from booting from the secondary image automatically, you can disable image rotation. Use the following commands:
```
config system global
set image-rotation disable
end
```

- Ensure the correct partition is set for the next reboot. Use the command:
```
execute set-next-reboot primary
```
This command sets the primary partition as the next boot partition.

- After making these changes, test the switch by simulating a reboot to ensure it boots from the desired partition.

- Monitor the switch logs for any errors or warnings that might indicate issues with the primary image.

Regards!

[MontanaMike]

I had another switch that when rebooted this morning came up on an empty config.  I was able to restore it to a the most recent backup config from flash and all is well but this switch had image rotation disabled prior to the reboot.  3 other switches I rebooted in the last 24 hours behaved normally and they had image rotation disabled.

I'm not sure where the issue is coming from.  The models of Fortiswitch were 448Ds (normally rebooted), 448E (one rebooted normally and one did not) and a 448E-POE which was the one that didn't work normally this morning.  I have another 448E (FPOE model) that I've held off on rebooting as well as a 1048E which functions as a core fiber switch.

Any more suggestions?

[acastillo_gsg]

I've ran into the same thing described here a few times. Does it make sense to just disable image-rotation globally in an environment?