Licensing in FortiSOAR™

FortiSOAR™ enforces licensing and restricts the usage of FortiSOAR™ by specifying the following:

  • The maximum number of active users in FortiSOAR™ at any point in time
  • The expiration date of the license itself.
  • Additional entitlements such as a multitenancy enabled license, advanced branding enabled license, etc.

Important

For a community edition license, action count restrictions might apply. The action count restriction limits the number of playbooks that can be run per day and it is governed by the action limit set in the license against the total number of steps in the playbook run during the day.

For a fresh install of FortiSOAR™, see FortiSOAR™ licensing process. To retrieve your Hardware key, see Retrieving the FortiSOAR™ Hardware Key.

A configuration wizard runs automatically on the first ssh login by the csadmin user. This wizard automatically generates your hardware key and saves the hardware key in the /home/csadmin/hkey file. For more information, see the FortiSOAR Configuration Wizard topic.

Important

In case you have cloned the data of your FortiSOAR™ system or cloned your FortiSOAR™ system to another system then your current FortiSOAR™ license is invalidated, and you must obtain an updated license file from a FortiSOAR™ CS representative.

You can update your license and view the details of your license using the FortiSOAR™ UI. For more information, see System Configuration in the "Administration Guide."

FortiSOAR™ licensing process

  1. Before a FortiSOAR™ CS representative can generate a license file for you, you must send a license request to a CS representative at support@cybersponse.com with the following details included:

    1. Company | Customer Name
    2. Administrator’s Name
    3. Administrator’s Email Address
    4. Administrator’s Phone Number
    5. Number of Users: Number of users who are going to login to the FortiSOAR™ instance. Support matches this against your entitlement.
    6. License Expiration Date: This is the date that is stated in the licensing agreement with your Company and Fortinet. If you’re using a community edition license of FortiSOAR™, this will be issued based on the current community edition licensing model.
      Support will match this against your entitlement.
    7. Hardware Key: Hardware key of your FortiSOAR™ installation. See Retrieving the FortiSOAR™ Hardware Key.
    8. Intended Usage: Overview of the environment where this key would be deployed. For example, a Staging Environment, or a node in your Production Environment.
    9. License Type: Specify if you require a FortiSOAR™ license that has been enabled for multi-tenancy.
    10. Gateway IP Address: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
      Note: This IP is needed for whitelisting purposes, so that the FortiSOAR™ Cloud RPM Webserver can allow your instance of FortiSOAR™ to install updates, connectors, security patches using the Yum Update commands. These commands are included in the Deployment and User guides. For security purposes, without this IP, updates and patches cannot be downloaded.
      If you wish to not provide this IP address at the time of installation, FortiSOAR™ will operate properly without any issues. Only if and when you wish to update to the latest version of FortiSOAR™, will a Gateway IP address be needed to allow “whitelisting” to the RPM Cloud Server. If you have any questions about this contact your CS representative.
      Example format for FortiSOAR™ License Email Template:
      a. Company Name:
      b. Administrator’s Name:
      c. Administrator’s Email Address:
      d. Administrator’s Phone Number:
      e. Number of Users:
      f. License Expiration Date:
      g. Hardware Key:
      h. Intended Usage:
      i. License Type:
      j. Gateway IP Address:
  2. Next, a CS representative will generate your license file [upon verification], and the license file will be emailed to the Administrators email address (noted in step 1) that you had provided.

  3. Your administrator can now deploy the FortiSOAR™ license. See Deploying the FortiSOAR™ license.

Retrieving the FortiSOAR™ Hardware key

Your FortiSOAR™ installation generates a unique hardware key. This key is used to identify each unique FortiSOAR™ environment.

A configuration wizard runs automatically on the first ssh login by the csadmin user. This wizard automatically generates your hardware key and saves the hardware key in the /home/csadmin/hkey file. For more information, see the FortiSOAR Configuration Wizard topic.

You might need to retrieve your FortiSOAR™ hardware key, in case you have cloned your FortiSOAR™ system to another system and require a new license or you have misplaced your hardware key.

You can retrieve the FortiSOAR™ license using the FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI (csadm). A root user can directly run the csadm license --get-hkey command to print the hardware key on the CLI. For more information on the FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI, see the FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI chapter in the "Administration Guide."

Deploying the FortiSOAR™ license

You can deploy the FortiSOAR™ license using the FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI. A root user can directly run the csadm license --deploy-enterprise-license <License File Path> command. For example, csadm license --deploy-enterprise-license temp/12344.lic. If your license is enabled for multitenancy, then run the csadm license --deploy-multi-tenant-license <License File Path command. For more information on csadm, see the FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI chapter in the "Administration Guide."

The license path that you provide can either be relative to the current working directory or can be an absolute path. Once you have entered the license path, the csadm checks the license file for validity and whether you have selected the appropriate license type (enabled or not enabled for multi-tenancy).

The FortiSOAR™ Admin CLI displays a Success message, if your license file is deployed successfully, or an Error message that contains the reason for the failure.

Once your system is licensed, you can log on to the FortiSOAR™ UI and begin configuring the system.

License Manager Page

Click Settings > License Manager to open the License Manager page as shown in the following image:

License Manager Page

The License Manager page displays the customer, the total number of users FortiSOAR™ is licensed for, the date when the FortiSOAR™ license will expire, the number of days till the expiry of the FortiSOAR™ license, and your hardware key. You can click the Copy Hardware Key icon to copy your hardware key.

In case your FortiSOAR™ instance is part of a High Availability cluster, then the License Manager page, will also display information about the nodes in the cluster, if you have added a secondary node as shown in the following image:

License Manager Page in case of  your FortiSOAR™ instance is part of a High Availability cluster

Renewing your license using the FortiSOAR™ UI

You can renew your license using your FortiSOAR™ UI. Click Settings > License Manager to open the License Manager page.

License Manager

On the License Manager page, you can update your license by clicking Update License and either drag-and-drop your updated license or click and browse to the location where your license file is located, then select the file and click Open.

You can use the License Manager to view your license details and for updating your license. FortiSOAR™ displays a message about the expiration of your license 30 days prior to the date your license is going to expire. You must update your license within 30 days if you want to keep using FortiSOAR™. For more information, see the System Configuration chapter in the "Administration Guide."