Creating a support account

FortiGate-VM for OCI supports bring your own license (BYOL) and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) licensing models.

For BYOL, you typically order a combination of products and services, including support entitlement. PAYG includes support, for which you must contact Fortinet Support with your customer information.

You must create a FortiCare support account and obtain a license to activate the product through the FortiCare support portal. If you have not activated the license, you see the license upload screen when logging into the FortiGate-VM and cannot proceed to configure the FortiGate-VM.

BYOL

You can obtain licenses for the BYOL licensing model through any Fortinet partner. After you purchase a license or obtain an evaluation license, you receive a PDF with an activation code.

The FortiOS permanent trial license requires a FortiCare account. This trial license has limited features and capacity. The trial license only applies to BYOL deployments for FortiGate-VM on OCI. See VM license for details.

To register and download a license:

1. Go to Customer Service & Support and create a new account or log in with an existing account.
2. Click Register Now to start the registration process.
3. In the Registration Code field, enter your license activation code, then select Next to continue registering the product.
4. If you register the S-series subscription model, the site prompts you to select one of the following:
   1. Click Register to newly register the code to acquire a new serial number with a new license file.
   2. Click Renew to renew and extend the licensed period on top of the existing serial number, so that all features on the VM node continue working uninterrupted upon license renewal.
5. At the end of the registration process, download the license (.lic) file to your computer. You upload this license later to activate the FortiGate-VM. After registering a license, Fortinet servers may take up to 30 minutes to fully recognize the new license. When you upload the license (.lic) file to activate the FortiGate-VM, if you get an error that the license is invalid, wait 30 minutes and try again.

PAYG

To activate a PAYG license:

1. Deploy and boot the FortiGate PAYG VM and log into the FortiGate GUI management console.
2. From the Dashboard, copy the VM's serial number.
3. Go to Customer Service & Support and create a new account or log in with an existing account.
4. Click Register Now to start the registration process.
5. In the Registration Code field, enter your license activation code, then select Next to continue registering the product.
6. After completing registration, contact Fortinet Customer Support and provide your FortiGate instance's serial number and the email address associated with your Fortinet account.