Provisioning VMs

This section will detail the methods for installing FortiGate/FortiOS and other Fortinet VNFs and thirty party VMs into FortiHypervisor.

There are 2 areas in which VMs are configured in FortiHypervisor.

Image

The Image menu, is where Fortinet and third party VM disks are uploaded [Upload] and empty disks created [Create New].  This is also where ISO files can be uploaded for use in installing an OS into a virtual machine.

VM disks should be uploaded in uncompressed KVM QCOW2 format and CD/DVDs in ISO9660 format.

Virtual Machines

The Virtual Machines menu is where VM are configured.  A VM configuration includes definition of the number of CPUs and RAM provisioned, disks to be used, any CDROMs mounted and which network interfaces configured.

For systems with an active FortiCare support account attached, It is possible to provision a new Fortinet VM directly from FortiGuard using the Virtual Machines menu, bypassing the need to manually upload the disk images.

Note that when provisioning CPU resource, it is possible to overcommit

resource i.e. so more CPUs are specified that are physically available.

Please be aware of the consequence of such configuration. Memory cannot be overcommitted at this time and is limited to being configured to 100% of the available resource minus 2GB which is reserved for system use.

 

Installing Fortinet VMs

Automatic Import

Automatic import will be provided at in a future release via the Virtual Machine > Import button.

Manual Upload

If a Fortinet VM is not available via the automatic import method shown above, it is possible to manually import the Fortinet VM.

Locate and download the KVM version of the required VM from the Download > Firmware Images section of the Fortinet Support site e.g. for FortiMail 5.3.8:

 

Once downloaded, extract the zip file to a folder on your management computer.

VMs such as FortiOS, FortiManager and FortiCache only have a single boot disk and data disks need to be created manually to the required size.  Some VMs such as FortiMail have pre-defined disk templates of varying sizes which can optionally be used to provision the data disks for a VM install.

fortimail-kvm.qcow2        FortiMail boot disk

250 – 24576.qcow2            FortiMail data disk template in sizes from 250GB to 24TB Upload the boot disk to the FortiHypervisor by selecting Image > [Upload].

Repeat the process for the data disk using one of the provided templates as shown:

Alternatively, manually create a disk with whatever disk size is required by selecting Image > [Create New].

Once the disks have ben configured, proceed to the Virtual Machine > [Create New] to provision the VM.

CPU:	Select the number of CPUs to suit your environment and VM license
Memory:	Select the amount of memory to suit your environment and VM license
Boot Order	Select the boot order of Hard-Disk or CDROM.  In the Fortinet VM case this is always Hard-Disk.
License:	If the FortiHypervisor is correctly associated with a FortiCare account, any supported VM licenses should appear here.  These licenses can be selected and automatically configured into the VM using cloud-init for supported Fortinet VMs.
AutoStart:	Start the VM once configuration has been completed?
Disk:	Select Create New and bind the previously uploaded Boot disk and data disk(s) (VM dependent) •       Select the disk type according to the VM being configured. •       For Fortinet VMs this is normally vertio however see Appendix X for exceptions.
Interface:	Select Create New and bind the appropriate Virtual Switch interfaces to the VM

• Select the interface type according to the VM being configured.
• For Fortinet VMs this is normally vertio-net however, refer to Appendix X for exceptions.