Updating SLBC firmware

After you have registered your FortiControllers and workers you can download the most recent FortiController and FortiOS firmware from the support web site https://support.fortinet.com. Select the FortiSwitchATCA product.

You can upgrade the worker firmware from the primary worker GUI or CLI. Upgrading the primary worker firmware also upgrades the firmware of all of the FortiControllers in the cluster. In a two chassis configuration the process is a bit more complex. See Updating SLBC firmware.

You can upgrade the FortiController firmware from the primary FortiController GUI or CLI. Upgrading the primary FortiController firmware also upgrades the firmware of all of the FortiControllers in the cluster in one operation. This also works for a two chassis cluster.

When you upgrade workers or FortiControllers, the cluster upgrades the secondary workers or FortiControllers first. Once the all of the secondary units have been upgraded the primary worker or FortiController is upgraded.

Worker and FortiController firmware can be upgraded independently as long as the firmware running your FortiControllers supports the FortiOS firmware that you are upgrading the workers to. If you need to upgrade both the workers and the FortiControllers you should upgrade the workers first unless stated otherwise in the FortiSwitch ATCA release notes.

Upgrading FortiController and worker firmware may briefly interrupt network traffic so if possible this should be done during a quiet period.

The command output provides the same information as the Load Balance > Status page, including the slot that contains the primary unit (slot 3), the number of workers in the cluster, the slots containing all of the workers (3, 4, and 6) and the status of each. Status information includes the status of the connection between the FortiController and the base and fabric backplanes, whether the heartbeat is active, the status of the FortiController and the data processed by it. The status message can also indicate if the FortiController is waiting for a fabric connection or waiting for a base connection.

You can also use the following commands to display detailed session aware load balancing diagnostics:

diagnose SLBC {dp | tcam-rules}

The dp option provides diagnostics for the DP processors and the tcam-rules option provides diagnostics for content aware routing rules (TCAM).