How to migrate config from older 80C to new 90D

[lancorp]

Curious what people do when upgrading their Fortigate hardware?  We have an older 80C and need to upgrade to a 90D to take advantage of a new 200Mb/s internet service (why is there a gigabit WAN port but only 10/100 LAN ports on the 80C?).

I did not configure the 80C...a previous consultant did, and while over the years have become familiar with the Fortigate, I'm no expert.  Is there a way to migrate the config from the 80C to the 90D or what do people recommend?

Thanks.

[rwpatterson]

There is no 'magic bullet' when it comes to upgrading a baked in config onto a new device. The basic rule of thumb is:

Make sure the firmware levels are the same! Sometimes close is good enough when talking minor version numbers, but exact is always best. The issue with what your trying to do is that the interface names may be/are different between the two units. You may/would have to backup the unit without a password (clear text), swap a few lines, and upload to the new box. If the interface names are different, you would need a middle step to rename the old interfaces to what the new unit is expecting, then cross you fingers when you upload that modified config to the new box. This is the 10k foot view. There were many threads in the past with more details, but nothing recently.