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General Description
A Charon emulator product will not run without a valid license. This license can be provided on a USB hardware dongle (a Sentinel HASP key) or as a software license bound to the hardware of the host system or the network license server. A loss or defect of a license will cause the emulator to stop.
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In some emulator products it is possible to configure the number of retries and the waiting time between them by adding parameters to the emulator configuration file. Please refer to the product documentation for the details regarding the relevant parameters:
- Charon-AXP/VAX:
license_key_lookup_retryparameter - Charon-HPA:
license_retry_periodandlicense_retry_countparameters (obsolete starting with version 1.10)
2. At regular intervals during the runtime of the emulator (the default license check period of 1 hour can be changed by Stromasys using the appropriate license parameters):
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The license check for Charon-HPA will pass if the version on the license is higher than the one of the running Charon instance, as long as the major version (e.g., the 4 in 4.7) is the same.
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License Type Overview
Depending on customer requirements, Stromasys can provide several different license types.
Local Hardware License
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Local hardware licenses are USB dongles and work on the system they are physically connected to. For Windows systems supporting AnywereUSB®, hardware licenses can also be connected over the network. They can easily be moved to a different system, if required. The content of the dongle can be updated if a change to the license or an extension of a time-based license is required. The necessary steps will be described later in this document.
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Software License
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A software license is a "virtual" key with functionality very similar to a HASP network-enabled hardware dongle. A software license does not require any special hardware but it still requires installation of the Sentinel runtime environment.
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Network License
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The network Sentinel HASP key (red USB dongle) can be shared between several hosts running a Charon emulator product (including the host on which the network license is installed).
If the Charon emulator product is installed on the host where the network license is connected, no additional steps are required. The Sentinel driver is installed as part of the Charon product installation. If the host does not have a Charon emulator product installed, the host can still distribute the connected network license to emulator instances running on other hosts. The Sentinel HASP runtime software must be installed on such a "license server" and on the client system. For details regarding the installation, please refer to the software installation section in this document. Once both the Sentinel runtime software and the network license are installed, the Charon emulator product can be started on any appropriate client host on the LAN, provided access to the license is enabled.
The maximum number of concurrently active Charon instances is determined by the parameters of the license. |
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If you need to install a standalone license server, please refer to the installation section of the Charon Licensing Handbook. |
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Overview of Initial License Installation Steps
Each Charon emulator product requires a valid license to run. To access the license, the emulator needs the Sentinel runtime software. This software is part of the Charon-HPA for Linux installation kits. Refer to the software installation section of the Charon product user's guide for software installation instructions.
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- Add a password for the Sentinel Admin Control Center (ACC).
- If you purchased a hardware license, you can simply plug the dongle into a free USB port on the system.
- If you purchased a software license, you need to create a fingerprint file in C2V (customer-to-vendor) format containing the system characteristics. Use this file to request a license for your Charon product from Stromasys.
- If your license is a network license served by a license server, make sure that the access of the client system to the license server is not blocked by the configuration or a firewall.
- Optionally, define how multiple licenses will be used (selecting primary/backup license, defining license priorities).
- If you have an existing license that needs to be updated, you need to create a customer-to-vendor (C2V) file and use this file to request a license update from Stromasys.
Overview of License Management Tools
The following list shows the main tools used to manage licenses on Linux:
- Sentinel Admin Control Center (ACC): A web-based interface providing important configuration options with respect to licenses.
- The hasp_srm_view program: A command-line tool to display the detailed license contents and generate C2V and fingerprint files. Cannot be used over a remote connection when using local hardware licenses.
- The hasp_update program: A command-line tool to install new and update existing licenses.
Accessing the License Management Tools
The command-line tools are installed under /opt/charon/bin/. If this directory is not part of your PATH variable, you have to specify the full path to access the command.
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The Sentinel ACC on the local system is accessed by starting a web-browser and pointing it to the URL: http://localhost:1947.
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Sentinel Admin Control Center (ACC) Security Settings
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Stromasys strongly recommends performing the steps described below to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to the Sentinel ACC. |
Define a Password for the Sentinel ACC
By default, anyone on the local system with access to port 1947 can access the GUI. If remote access is enabled, users on the network with access to port 1947 can also access the GUI. To protect access to the GUI with a password, perform the following steps:
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| 1 | Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:1947/. | ||
| 2 | Click on the left-hand menu item labeled Configuration. | ||
| 3 | Click on the Basic Settings tab. | ||
| 4 | Under the entry labeled Password Protection, click the Change Password button. | ||
| 5 | At the Change Password window:
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| 6 | Back at the Basic Settings tab:
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| 7 | Optional: to allow remote access to the Sentinel HASP GUI:
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With these settings, when you connect to the HASP GUI from a remote system, you may be prompted for a username and password. It is enough to just enter the configured password and leave the username field empty. |
Set Linux File Protections
To prevent unprivileged access and modifications to the Sentinel HASP configuration file on Linux, enter the following commands:
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The file hasplm.ini on Windows is readable by normal users but cannot be modified. Password information is encrypted.
Should it not be possible to open a local browser on a Linux server, the remote access setting can also be modified by editing the file /etc/hasplm/hasplm.ini and changing the value of the parameter ACCremote from 0 (access disabled) to 1 (access enabled). The parameter to enable network visibility is bind_local_only. It must be set to 0. Changed settings are recognized automatically by aksusbd.
View Existing Licenses
It is important to know which licenses are visible on a system. For example, the user can
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- Sentinel ACC: shows important information, but not the product specific license parameters.
- Command-line tool hasp_srm_view: shows all product details contained on the license. Can only be run from a local connection for local hardware licenses.
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Viewing a License with Sentinel ACC
To view available licenses using Sentinel ACC, start the web interface as described above.
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The menu options Products, Features and Sessions on the left-hand side provide the same information as the buttons. However, they show the information for all licenses.
Viewing a License with hasp_srm_view
On Linux, the license content is displayed using the hasp_srm_view command. For displaying the license, the following parameters are relevant:
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Install the License
This section provides a short overview of the initial license installation. For more in-depth information, please refer to the licensing handbook.
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If a conflicting or obsolete license is visible to the system, it can be (temporarily) removed or disabled. If you need to remove a hardware license, simply unplug it. If you need to remove a software license or disable access to a network license, please refer to the relevant chapter in the licensing handbook. Before removing a license or disabling access to it ensure that it is not required by another currently active product. |
Installing a Local Hardware License
A local hardware license (USB dongle) is installed by inserting the USB license key into a free USB port of the host system.
After this step, verify that the license is visible to the system by following the steps for viewing a license as described above. Please bear in mind that a local hardware license cannot be read when connected to the system via a remote connection (for example, ssh).
Installing a Software License
To install a new software license, perform the following steps:
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This section describes the installation of a new software license. However, the commands to install a V2C file are identical when updating a hardware license. Important caveat: When updating a hardware license you will in most cases receive two V2C files, a *_fmt.v2c file and a *.v2c file. The *_fmt.v2c file formats the dongle and the *.v2c file contains the updated license data. In such cases the *_fmt.v2c file must be applied first. |
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Installing a Network License
For a network license to be provided to a client host on the network, a license server must have been set up either with a network-enabled hardware license (red dongle) or a software license (software licenses are always network enabled).
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- Any firewall between license server and client must permit the necessary communication.
- The license server must be configured to allow access from the client.
- The client must be configured to allow access to the license server.
Firewall Considerations
The following ports are used for the communication between license server and client hosts:
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For details on how to configure the firewall in your network, please consult your operating system documentation and make sure to adhere to your company's security policies.
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Allowing Client Access on the License Server
The Sentinel license manager on the license server can be configured to allow or disallow access from remote clients to the network licenses installed on the license server. To access this configuration option, perform the following steps on the license server:
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- To allow access from remote clients, activate the check-box next to the field Allow Access from Remote Clients and press Submit at the bottom of the page.
To allow access from remote clients, network visibility on the "Network" tab must be set to All Network Adapters. - To refuse access from remote clients, clear the check-box next to the field Allow Access from Remote Clients and press Submit at the bottom of the page.
- Access Restrictions allow refining access rules, e.g., by specifying IP addresses. Please refer to Sentinel ACC help for details.
- To allow access from remote clients, activate the check-box next to the field Allow Access from Remote Clients and press Submit at the bottom of the page.
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Allowing Access to a License Server on the Client
The Sentinel ACC can be configured to enable or prevent that the client host discovers network licenses and to change the options used to discover and access network licenses provided by a license server.
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Starting with Charon-AXP/VAX 4.9 for Linux, Charon-AXP/VAX version 4.8 for Windows, and Charon-HPA 1.10, the Charon emulator products do not follow the settings in the Sentinel ACC with respect to querying remote license servers and network visibility. They perform a broadcast search for network licenses even if this has been disabled in the Sentinel ACC. If this behavior has to be prevented for specific reasons, the network access of the system has to be temporarily restricted or disabled, for example by blocking the relevant traffic in a firewall. Another possibility would be to block access to the network license at the license server side. Note that such methods can negatively impact other functions of the system or, in the case of blocking access to a network license on the server, even the functions on other license clients. |
Verifying License Availability
After installing a license on the system, verify the availability of the license as described in the section View Existing Licenses.
Check if the license shows the correct product, expiration date etc.
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Handle Multiple Keys
A Charon host system can have access to several local and remote license keys. Each license key can contain one or more product licenses.
The Charon emulator products can only use one active license at one time. Without additional configuration, they cannot make decisions about which product license or license key to use. If there is more than one available license key, the default license key will be used. The default license key is determined by the Sentinel software. As this can lead to undesirable effects, newer Charon emulator products have configuration parameters that allow the definition of a primary (or production) and a secondary (or backup) key, or the creation of a list of license keys or product licenses sorted by priority.
The following sections describe the options available to achieve a more deterministic license selection. If only one license is available, either locally installed or via the network, this section does not apply.
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For Charon-AXP/VAX before version 4.9, Charon-HPA before version 1.10, and other older Charon products: the parameters described in this section can only be used to define a primary key and a backup key, or to specify the correct key if there is a conflicting license for a different Charon product on the same system. It is not possible with these versions of Charon to combine a local license (black dongle) with other licenses (local or network) to increase the number of concurrent instances of the same Charon product on one host system. Newer versions allow a more flexible use of multiple licenses. Both variants are described in the following sections. |
Backup License Characteristics
Backup license keys are provided by Stromasys in addition to standard license keys.
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If you start and stop the emulator frequently (e.g., frequent runs with a duration of under one hour), the runtime may be significantly less than 30 days, because the license check during the start of an emulator will reduce the counter by one. |
Primary and Backup License for Charon-HPA prior to Version 1.10
If more than one key is visible to the system, you can define which is the primary and which the backup key. To do this, add the following parameters to the configuration file of the Charon instance:
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To get information about modifying the Charon configuration files, refer to the appropriate sections in the user's guide.
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Prioritized List of License Keys or Product License IDs for Charon-HPA Version 1.10 and Higher
Prioritized List of License Keys
If more than one key is visible to the system, you can define a prioritized list of license keys. To do this, add the following parameter to the configuration file of the Charon instance:
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To get information about modifying the Charon configuration files, refer to the appropriate sections in the user's guide.
Prioritized List of Product License IDs
Every license key can contain one or more product sections. Newer licenses can contain a product license ID identifying each product section. A prioritized list of product license IDs can be added to the emulator instance configuration file to specify which product sections to use and which should have the highest priority. To do this, add the following parameter to the configuration file of the Charon instance:
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To get information about modifying the Charon configuration files, refer to the appropriate sections in the user's guide.
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Update an Existing License
If you need to update an existing hardware or software license, for example because the time limit on the license has expired or to upgrade to a new product versions, perform the following tasks:
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