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Sentinel/Gemalto

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Tools not Applicable to the VE License Server

Any Sentinel/Gemalto-specific license tools provided with the emulator installation are not applicable to the VE license server configuration.

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The above tools and commands cannot be used for managing VE licenses. Please ignore them if you have a VE license.

Actions that

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Can Invalidate a VE License

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For cloud deployments: if supported by the cloud provider, the VE license server instance can be moved to a different subnet, as long as the original instance can be moved.

It is also possible to backup and restore (to the same instance) the license server data.

However, the following actions will invalidate the license:

• All supported environments:
  • Copying the license server data to a different instance
  • Seriously damaging the root filesystem of the license server system
  • Re-installing the license server system
  • Copying the virtual machine on which the license server runs
  • Changing the number of CPU cores of the license server system.
• VMware environments:
  • If the license server is bound to the ESXi host: using vMotion on the VM in which the VE license server runs
  • Changes to the API interface of the ESXi host or vCenter Server
  • The license can become temporarily unavailable if the user credentials or address information recorded by esxi_bind are changed. In this case, esxi_bind must be run again to define the correct user credentials and address information.
• AutoVE deployments:
  • Charon emulator host instance register with their license server only once at start.
    This is recorded on the license server in /opt/license-server/instances.db.
    If this file is lost, the license is not invalidated from the license server's view, but it can no longer be used from the Charon host instances as they will not register a second time. The Charon host instances would have to be recreated (fresh instance launch from a supported marketplace instance). Therefore, it is very important to backup up the instance database file. If a peer license server is used, the databases are synchronized between the two servers providing another level of data backup.

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Starting and Stopping the License Server

Please note: In versions before 1.0.17, the license server can only be started if a valid license is installed.

The license server is a systemd service that is controlled via systemctl:

• Starting the license server:     # systemctl start licensed
• Stopping the license server:   # systemctl stop licensed
• Restarting the license server: # systemctl restart licensed

The licensed service logs information to its log file in /opt/license-server/log/license.log and to journalctl.

Primary and Backup License Server / Peer Servers

General Information

Charon emulators for VE licenses support a backup license server to ensure service continuity should the primary license server become temporarily unavailable. The primary/backup servers in general VE license mode operate differently from the peer servers of AutoVE mode:

• For general VE license mode, backup licenses are typically limited to a certain number of emulator runtime hours. The backup license server is only used for failover if the primary license server fails in order not to deplete the available runtime hours unnecessarily.
• For AutoVE mode, the two license servers act as peers between which the client database is synchronized. The total number of instances available on both servers determines the number of Charon host cloud instances that can be licensed from the license server pair. Each instance can connect to either of the two servers. However, if one of the peers fails and there are not enough available instances on the second peer, there is no backup for an instance trying to fail over to the second  peer due to failure of its primary server - and the emulators running on this instance will fail. The license on the server designated as backup server can be a countdown license (specified number of runtime hours) or a normal license.

The example below shows the output of a time-limited license:

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Starting and Stopping the License Server

Please note: In versions before 1.0.17, the license server can only be started if a valid license is installed.

The license server is a systemd service that is controlled via systemctl:

• Starting the license server:     # systemctl start licensed
• Stopping the license server:   # systemctl stop licensed
• Restarting the license server: # systemctl restart licensed

The licensed service logs information to its log file in /opt/license-server/log/license.log and to journalctl.

Primary and Backup License Server / Peer Servers

General Information

Charon emulators for VE licenses support a backup license server to ensure service continuity should the primary license server become temporarily unavailable. The primary/backup servers in general VE license mode operate differently from the peer servers of AutoVE mode:

• For general VE license mode, backup licenses are typically limited to a certain number of emulator runtime hours. The backup license server is only used for failover if the primary license server fails in order not to deplete the available runtime hours unnecessarily.
• For AutoVE mode, the two license servers act as peers between which the client database is synchronized. The total number of instances available on both servers determines the number of Charon host cloud instances that can be licensed from the license server pair. Each instance can connect to either of the two servers. However, if one of the peers fails and there are not enough available instances on the second peer, there is no backup for an instance trying to fail over to the second  peer due to failure of its primary server - and the emulators running on this instance will fail. The license on the server designated as backup server can be a countdown license (specified number of runtime hours) or a normal license.

The example below shows the output of a time-limited license:

# /opt/license-server/license_viewer 
<<License Viewer>> Current license:
License fingerprint: 07792211fc8ce3fdc085 <truncated>
Customer name: Stromasys
License ID: 01.00000001.002.020
Key type: COUNTDOWN
Expiration date: 100 hour(s)
Platform: amazon.aws
Release date: 2021-06-17 13:08:01
Grace period: 120 minutes
License check interval: 60 minutes

Virtual Hardware: Charon-SSP/4M,Charon-SSP/4U
Product code: Charon-SSP/ALL
Expiration date: 2021-12-22 23:55:00
Major Version: 5
Minor Version: 3
Maximum CPU: 64
Maximum virtual memory: 1048576MB
Instances allowed: 3

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Should the primary license server become unavailable, the emulator tries to connect to the backup license server. If this succeeds, the emulator continues to run without interruption. If no connection to a valid license can be established within 2 hours (default for general VE license mode) or 24 hours (default for AutoVE mode)the grace period, after the loss of the license has been detected, the emulator will stop. The grace period is defined on the licenseThe grace period is defined on the license. Check the license content for the actual value configured (default for new licenses is 24 hours, but the actual configuration may be different).

Please note: If you do not have a valid backup license and the primary license server is unavailable for more than the grace period, make sure to shut down the guest operating system cleanly before the end of the grace period. Failure to do so may cause data loss or corruption.

If the primary license server becomes available again after the emulator has switched to the backup server, the emulator will automatically switch back to the primary server to avoid unnecessary depletion of the backup license runtime hours in VE license server mode.

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Log Files

Log files provide important information about the operation of the license server and the Charon emulator software. In case of problems, this is the first place to check.

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Please note: The output shows a 2 hour grace period. The grace period implementation changed several times. In VE versions before version 4.1.21, the grace period was 24 hours. It was shortened to two hours after the introduction of the backup license server feature in 4.1.19. Since and defaults changed several times. Since VE version 1.1.12, the grace period is determined by the corresponding license parameter (please check the license content for the value configured on your license). If a valid license has not become available before the end of the grace period, the emulator will be stopped.

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20211214:193342.307175:VE primary license 192.168.2.2
20211214:193342.307701:There is no VE backup server.
20211214:193342.334171:Trying to login to license server: 192.168.2.2
20211214:193351.337196:warn:Unable to login to server because the license server failed to respond
20211214:193351.337392:err:Failed to connect with the license server.
20211214:193351.337457:err:Failed to connect with the license server.
20211214:193351.337457:err:Failed to connect with the license server.
20211214:193351.337509:err:Exit
20211214:193351.339823:err:Invalid license product name with the license server.
20211214:193351.337509:err:Exit
20211214:193351.339823:err:Invalid license product name

Charon-AXP/VAX Emulator Log Files

The default location for the Charon-AXP/VAX emulator log files on Linux (Linux is required for VE licensing): if the setting of the template configuration is used, the default is the directory from which the emulator instance was started.

The name and location can be influenced via the configuration file.

By default log file name is <model-name>.log.

Management GUI Web Server Log File

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