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Hi Guys! In this article, we will discuss how you can deploy the FortiGate Virtual Firewall in VMWare Workstation. You must have to download FortiGate virtual Firewall ovf file from your Fortinet support portal. In this scenario, we will configure the Virtual FortiGate Firewall in Linux as well as Windows environment. Before starting, it’s required you have a minimum of 4GB of RAM with i5 or i7 processor. So, let’s start!
Step 1: Download FortiGate Virtual Firewall
First of all, you have to download your virtual FortiGate Firewall from your support portal. To do this, visit here, and go to Download > VM Images > Select Product: FortiGate > Select Platform: VMWare ESXi as per the given reference image below. By default, you did ‘t get any license associated with your virtual image. So, you have to buy the licenses as per your requirements.
Image Source: Fortinet
After downloading, FortiGate VM Compressed file, you need to extract the files in a folder. Just use your Extract tool to extract the zip file and it looks like the below image.
Step 2: Download and Install VMWare Workstation
After downloading the Virtual Firewall image, you must have to download and install VMWare Workstation. If you already installed, just skip this step. To download VMWare Workstation, visit the official website VMWare Workstation or download it from filehippo. By default, you get 30 days evaluation period, after that, you can purchase it. Once you have installed it, it will be looks like the below image:
Step 3: Configuring your Virtual Network Interfaces for FortiGate Firewall
Now, it’s time to configure your Virtual Network Adaptors as per your requirements. By default, there are only two virtual network interfaces, i.e., VMNet1 and VMNet8. So, click on Windows Start Button and search for Virtual Network Editor. If you are using Linux (i.e. Ubuntu, Mint, etc.) you can type below command to open Virtual Network Editor. Click on the Add Network and make your virtual interface host only. After that, you have to provide the IP address. For example, I am going to use 192.168.100.0/24 for the vmnet1 interface.
Step 4: Deploying the FortiGate VM Image in VMWare Workstation
Now time to deploy FortiGate virtual firewall in VMWare Workstation. Just open the VMWare Workstation and go to Files >> Open (Ctrl+O). Select the ovf file you have download from the support portal. This process will take some time, so have patience. After the successful completion of this process, just modify the assign virtual network interfaces, memory, and processor. In my case, I’m giving 2GB RAM, 2 Processors, and 4 different virtual network interfaces (VMNet1, VMNet2, VMNet3, VMNet4). Let’s change the Firewall resources by clicking on Edit virtual machine settings. You can check the below images for reference.
Step 5: Configuring the Management Interface of FortiGate VM Firewall
Now, we have just finished the process of deploying the FortiGate firewall in VMWare Workstation. Now you have to configure an IP address to the Management Port. The first virtual interface will be the management interface. So, assign an IP address in the same range as we assigned in Step 3. This is the first look when you press the power-on button.
Hint: The default username is admin and password is [blank].
To assign the IP address, you have to follow given commands:
Step 6: Accessing the FortiGate VM Firewall using GUI (Graphical User Interface)
Now, it’s time to testing our configuration and accessing the FortiGate firewall using GUI. To do this, first, we will check the connectivity to our Firewall using the ping utility. After this, we will access the FortiGate Firewall GUI using its management interface IP address.
Default username is admin and password is [blank].
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Summary
In this article, we have discussed how we can deploy the FortiGate Virtual Firewall in VMWare workstation. It is required that you have a minimum of 4 GB of RAM and i5 or i7 processor to deploy FortiGate in VMWare. If you have any difficulties in deploying the firewall in VMware, you can comment in the comment box!
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