To activate the trial, your FortiGate VM must have internet access. Log into the GUI. You will be prompted to choose a license type.
What (VPN, routing, deep inspection) matter most to your project.
The system will reboot to apply the permanent trial license. Fortinet Document Library 💡 Best Use Cases Recommendation GNS3 / EVE-NG Labs Great for practicing routing and CLI commands. NSE Certification Study Highly Recommended. Essential for passing NSE 4/7 exams. Home Firewall Not Recommended. Throughput is too slow for modern internet. Enterprise Production Forbidden. No support or real-time threat protection. If you'd like, I can help you: the trial against a paid VM license (VM01 vs. VM02) Troubleshoot common activation errors like "Could not connect to FortiGuard" Find documentation for deploying on specific clouds like Which of these would be most helpful for your current project Permanent trial mode for FortiGate-VM fortigate vm license trial
: Full access to stateful firewalling, routing, and VPN features. VDOMs : Limited to a maximum of 10 Virtual Domains. How to Activate the Trial License To set up your evaluation, follow these steps:
Example (SCP/TFTP):
You will be prompted to choose your hypervisor or cloud provider:
The “trial” had done what no demo environment could. It had stress-tested their real infrastructure, caught a real attack, and proved the ROI in blood and data. To activate the trial, your FortiGate VM must
A: You must contact your Fortinet Account Manager or a regional Sales Engineer. They can issue a specific Evaluation License that removes the CPU, interface, and service limitations.
Keep your test lab small (max 1 CPU, 3 policies). If you'd like, I can: What (VPN, routing, deep inspection) matter most to
For full feature testing, request a 30-day evaluation license from a Fortinet partner. This unlocks multi-core CPU support and temporary FortiGuard subscription updates. 3. How to Obtain the FortiGate VM Trial License
