Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Firmware Update via USB Stick

Recently I performed a software upgrade on a Fortinet Active/Passive Cluster. The primary firewall took the upgrade ok but the secondary unit got hung up. When I rebooted the secondary unit it had remained at the old firmware version. I did not have a working USB-to-Serial converter available so was unable to perform a CLI tftp upgrade of the secondary unit. Here is how I used a USB stick to upgrade the secondary unit:

  • Format a USB stick using FAT16. This works best on a PC. The CLI USB commands on the firewall did not work for me very reliably.
  • Copy the appropriate firmware to the USB stick as "image.out".
  • Insert USB stick into firewall you want to upgrade and reboot the firewall
  • After several minutes the firewall will reboot again. Remove the USB at the beginning of this reboot.
Voila, your firewall should now be upgraded to the firmware on the USB stick.

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5 comments:

  1. Paulo RaponiOctober 27, 2009 at 1:57 PM

    good idea...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 29, 2014 at 1:53 PM

    I'll try this method with a fortigate 20C i hope this one works because the damn firewall its too expensive, ill leave feedback on the go.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 13, 2014 at 9:33 AM

    For the newer firewall's must be FAT32

    ReplyDelete
  4. ShackksSeptember 24, 2017 at 5:38 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ShackksSeptember 24, 2017 at 5:39 AM

    My 20C is having issue, only the POWER is lit up even after leaving it for a day.

    The unit was not detected by FortiExplorer, and I tried resetting the unit by pressing the reset button with a pin also doesnt work.

    So, I came across your post and decided to try the usb method. i formatted a USB pendrive with FAT and rename a firmware file to "image.out" and copied into the pendrive.

    I switched off the firewall and plug in the pendrive. Then switched it on again. The pendrive does have activity for a while but shortly, nothing happened after that.

    Last, I tried to format the pendrive to FAT32 and repeated the steps above. And the result is still the same.

    Is there any other way to revive this 20C of mine?

    Thank you very much in advance.

    ReplyDelete