hilscherautomation/netfield-app-license-server repository overview

⁠Embedded license server for Hilscher license-protected applications

⁠Product Information

The container "netFIELD App License Server" is a network license server for embedded systems used to host software licenses for Hilscher license-protected applications. It can be deployed on as many distributed host systems as needed. For a more centrally organized license administration, it is recommended to run a single license server on a central host (e.g. PC), and use a server runtime installer from here⁠ instead.

Licenses from Hilscher are usually of type floating and even though they can be shared among applications, each license can authorize only one application at a time. A license is individually issued by Hilscher and handed over on a customer-order basis. Each license can be installed (activated) only one time on any of the operated embedded or other license servers. A fingerprint of the server's host system is taken during activation making the stored license unique and bundled with the hardware. Any try to transfer an activated license to other host systems later will cause a license check to fail.

The container stores the licenses within its local container environment in a designated volume named "netfield-app-license-server-data". Storing the licenses in a separate volume has the advantage that the volume and the stored licenses will survive a container deletion or re-creation. ⚠ Using the auto-deletion option for volumes in the container's start parameters has to be avoided in all cases as well as calling a command like "volume prune" which deletes all existing container volumes on a host system at once. Else the stored licenses are gone forever and cannot be restored.

A started container listens for client applications requesting licenses (port 22350). It will be replying accordingly if a corresponding license was found or not. All that is needed for proper client-server communication is to make the container's IP address known to any requesting client. Since clients are checking for a license at irregular intervals again, a permanent operation of and access to the server has to be ensured by the operator.

⁠Running the container using Docker Compose

The most convenient way to start the container is using docker-compose with

docker-compose --file <docker-compose-file.yml> up -d

Docker Compose example files for different instrumentation scenarios can be downloaded from here⁠.

⁠Documentation

Find the user manual of the container here⁠.

⁠FAQ

Find an FAQ here⁠.

⁠Version History

Find the version history for the offered container tags in this repository here⁠.

⁠License Agreement

The software is licensed under the Hilscher Source Code and Software License Agreement⁠

⁠Copyright

© 2023 Hilscher Gesellschaft für Systemautomation mbH