If you do not have a support contract, you can request a 15-day trial:
Then came the "Evaluation License" screen. This was Fortinet's brilliant compromise. You could download and run the qcow2 for free, but it was capped at low throughput (often 1 Mbps or 10 Mbps) and limited features until you uploaded a paid license file. This allowed students and engineers to learn the OS for free, creating a generation of Fortinet experts, while ensuring production environments paid for the bandwidth.
Initially, finding a direct qcow2 link was difficult. Fortinet focused heavily on the format (Open Virtualization Appliance), which was perfect for VMware ESXi and VirtualBox users. But for the growing legion of engineers using Proxmox, KVM, or nested virtualization labs, an OVA was a bloated wrapper. They wanted the raw disk image. fortigate qcow2 download
(Note: The file is usually delivered as a .zip containing the .qcow2 image.)
unzip FGT_VM64_KVM-*.zip sudo qemu-img convert -O qcow2 FGT_VM64_KVM-*.out.qcow2 fortios.qcow2 sudo cp fortios.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/ virt-install ... --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/fortios.qcow2,format=qcow2 If you do not have a support contract,
The engineer would create a generic Linux VM in their hypervisor of choice (like Proxmox or virt-manager) and point the disk bus not to a new empty drive, but to the downloaded qcow2 file.
The qcow2 format offered distinct advantages that aligned perfectly with FortiGate deployment needs: This allowed students and engineers to learn the
Fortinet, the company behind FortiGate, provides virtual appliance images in various formats, including qcow2. These images can be used to deploy FortiGate virtual appliances in virtualization environments.
The story of the FortiGate qcow2 download is a story of adaptation. Fortinet realized that to win the data center, they had to be as agile as the software running on it. By providing a robust qcow2 image, they ensured that the "FortiOS" experience was identical whether it was running on a $50,000 chassis in a server rack or on a virtual machine inside a student's laptop.