Tuesday 20 May 2014

How-to: Factory reset a FortiGate config but preserve the interface IP address

Not many people realise the FortiGates allow to you factory reset the device while maintaining the interface IP and static route settings. It's useful when you want to wipe away the entire config but still have management access to the device when it reboots.

This is done via the CLI using the follow command: execute factoryreset2.

I've included a screenshot of the command and confirmation prompt below.


3 comments:

Dementor said...

What would happen to the admin password and the approved admin protocols on the interface?
im asking this because i want to know if i factory reset the unit using this method would i still be able to access it remotely?

Allan Mouawad said...

Your admin users will all be wiped clean and it will go back to the default (admin/no password) login.

The admin protocols enabled on your interfaces will remain the same however as will your routes.

So doing this remotely will allow you to reconnect to the firewall, but you'll have to do it quick and change the admin credentials before someone else does ;)

Alan Baker said...

Never knew this one! Thanks