Bootstrapping FortiGate at initial bootup

This section explains how to add bootstrapping of FortiOS CLI commands and bring your own license licensing at the time of initial bootup as part of Google Cloud commands.

To bootstrap FortiGate at initial bootup:

1. Create a text file that contains FortiGate CLI commands. This example saves the file as config.txt. CRLF must be present. Using a text editor that includes CRLF automatically is recommended. This example uses the following CLI commands:

   config system global

   set timezone 03

   end

   This example sets the timezone as GMT-9 Alaska. You can replace these lines with your own set of CLI commands.

2. You can download a license file from Customer Service & Support after registering your product code. Save the license file as a .txt file. FortiGate-VM license content resembles the following:

   

3. Upload the config.txt and license files onto the Linux machine were you run the Google Cloud SDK commands. Place the files in the same directory.
4. Run the command as Deploying a FortiGate-VM instance describes, adding the following:

   --metadata-from-file "license=<license text file>,user-data=<FortiGate CLI text file>". In this example, it is --metadata-from-file "license=license.txt,user-data=config.txt".

   

5. After deployment, log into the FortiGate by accessing https://<IP_address> in your browser. The system displays the dashboard instead of a license upload window, since the license is already activated.

   

   To see how bootstrapping went, check if the command ran successfully. Open the CLI console and enter diag debug cloudinit show.

   If the cloud-init was run successfully, the CLI shows Finish running script with no errors. If you see an error with this diagnose command, resolve it and try again by checking the license and config.txt files. Ensure that the text file contains CRLF.

6. Check the timezone by running config system global and get commands.

   

   The timezone was changed to Alaska as expected, meaning that the bootstrapping CLI command succeeded. This assumes that you used the default FortiGate CLI command in step 1. If you modified the command, test it accordingly.