Fortinet 5.0 Patch 6 Installing alternate firmware

Fortinet 84 FortiWeb 5.0 Patch 6 Administration Guide

To update the firmware of an HA pair

1. Verify that both of the members in the HA pair are powered on and available on all of the

network interfaces that you have configured.

2. Log in to the web UI of the primary appliance as the admin administrator. (You cannot

connect to an appliance while it is the standby.)

Alternatively, log on with an administrator account whose access profile contains Read and

Write permissions in the Maintenance category.

3. Install the firmware on the primary appliance. For details, see “Installing firmware” on

page 79. When installing via the web UI, a message will appear after your web browser has

uploaded the file:

Sending the new firmware file to the standby. Please wait...

The primary appliance will transmit the firmware file to the standby appliance over its HA

link.The standby appliance will upgrade its firmware first; on the active appliance, this will be

recorded in an event log message such as:

Member (FV-1KC3R11111111) left HA group

After the standby appliance reboots and indicates via the HA heartbeat that it is up again,

the primary appliance will begin to update its own firmware. During that time, the standby

appliance will temporarily become active and process your network’s traffic. After the

original appliance reboots, it indicates via the HA heartbeat that it is up again. Which

appliance will assume the active role of traffic processing depends on your configuration

(see “How HA chooses the active appliance” on page 44):

•If Override is enabled, the cluster will consider your Device Priority setting. Therefore both

appliances usually make a second failover in order to resume their original roles.

•If Override is disabled, the cluster will consider uptime first. The original primary appliance

will have a smaller uptime due to the order of reboots during the firmware upgrade.

Therefore it will not resume its active role; instead, the standby will remain the new primary

appliance. A second failover will not occur.

Reboot times vary by the appliance model, and also by differences between the original

firmware and the firmware you are installing, which may require the installer to convert the

configuration and/or disk partitioning schemes to be compatible with the new firmware

version.