Firmware upgrades
In addition to introducing the basics of upgrading FortiGate-7000F firmware, this section describes how to:
l
Upgrade the firmware running on individual FIMs and FPMs.
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Upgrade individual FIM or FPM firmware from the BIOS.
Firmware upgrade basics
All of the FIMs and FPMs in your FortiGate-7000F system run the same firmware image. You upgrade the firmware from
the primary FIM GUI or CLI just as you would any FortiGate product.
You can perform a graceful firmware upgrade of a FortiGate-7000F FGCP HA cluster by enabling
uninterruptible-
upgrade
and
session-pickup
. A graceful firmware upgrade only causes minimal traffic interruption.
Upgrading the firmware of a standalone FortiGate-7000F, or FortiGate-7000F HA cluster with
uninterruptible-
upgrade
disabled interrupts traffic because the firmware running on the FIMs and FPMs upgrades in one step. These
firmware upgrades should be done during a quiet time because traffic will be interrupted during the upgrade process.
A firmware upgrade takes a few minutes, depending on the number of FIMs and FPMs in your FortiGate-7000F system.
Some firmware upgrades may take longer depending on factors such as the size of the configuration.
Before beginning a firmware upgrade, Fortinet recommends that you perform the following tasks:
l
Review the latest release notes for the firmware version that you are upgrading to.
l
Verify the recommended upgrade path as documented in the release notes.
l
Back up your FortiGate-7000F configuration.
Fortinet recommends that you review the services provided by your FortiGate-7000F before a
firmware upgrade and then again after the upgrade to make sure the services continues to
operate normally. For example, you might want to verify that you can successfully access an
important server used by your organization before the upgrade and make sure that you can
still reach the server after the upgrade, and performance is comparable. You can also take a
snapshot of key performance indicators (for example, number of sessions, CPU usage, and
memory usage) before the upgrade and verify that you see comparable performance after the
upgrade.
Verifying that a firmware upgrade is successful
After a FortiGate-7000F firmware upgrade, you should verify that all of the FIMs and FPMs have been successfully
upgraded to the new firmware version.
After the firmware upgrade appears to be complete:
FortiGate-7121F System Guide
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Fortinet Technologies Inc.