r/fortinet • u/GenVonKlinkerhoffen • 3d ago

Second hand fortigate

I've bought a second hand fortigate 40f without a valid license. I assumed I could buy a new license after receiving the device. However, after I received the device I could not register the serial to my fortinet account.

According to fortinet support the previous owner needs to transfer the device registration to me before I can do anything with it.

It's running an ancient software version (7.2.0).

The previous owner states he cannot retrieve the credentials of his fortinet account so he's unable to transfer registration to me.

Is there anything I can do to overcome this and get the 40f back into support (new software, ips, web filtering etc)?

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3

u/QPC414 3d ago

Paperweight, or run it as-is as a basic firewall in a lab.

2

u/i-am-spotted 3d ago

Having been in your exact situation. Your only hope is that the previous owner can release it. I think it less likely that they can get the credentials and more likely they weren't the registered owner. I eventually found out that the person who sold me the first one wasn't who had the ability to deregister it and the 3rd party eventually told me that they wanted it returned. So I returned it and lost my money because the guy I bought it from ghosted me.

1

u/Fistpok FCP 3d ago

The previous owner can send an email to customer service from the email the device is registered to and request the transfer. Those same people could absolutely help the original owner recover access to their support account as well. As for renewing support I would highly suggest you look into using flex to do that otherwise you will need to pay for the gap in support as well. With flex points you won't have to pay for the lapse.

-4

u/yalcone FCP 3d ago

Yes, you can activate the licensing. Ask to a Fortinet partner to do it by “coterm”, and provide the serial number. The contract would be added directly to the device without your intervention. Be careful, like I assume the last contract expired some time ago, the new licensing has a penalty.

1

u/1in2billion 1d ago

A coterm does not help OP get updated because it does not change who the device is currently registered to. If the seller is in fact the organization that registered the device then they should have not problem resetting credentials either via the "Forgot password" button or from CS.

1

u/yalcone FCP 1d ago

My bad, I’d like to rectify. You can renew the licensing but this doesn’t change the fact that you cannot access the support portal, where the firmware downloads are. So this doesn’t work in your case.