Temporary License

The 2024 CrowdStrike Incident no doubt had managers asking lots of “what-if” questions, reevaluating their recovery plans for unexpected scenarios.   You will have a Recovery Time Objective and a Recovery Point Objective for how long it will take to recover to a certain point.

For high availability of Genero applications you will typically have a back-up server ready to run already licensed with a back-up license. When the switch from the live to the back-up server occurs there is no extra time or steps associated with the Genero license,  it is ready to go.

For the next tier down of recovery strategies, your plan may include recovering from a back-up.  If you recover a licensed Genero installation from a back-up, you may encounter errors such as …

Following problem occurs with license number 'TAB#XXXXXXXX':
ERROR(-6042):MAC Address has changed.

ERROR(-6177):Following problem occurs with license number 'TAB#XXXXXXXX': The device number of the license file has changed.

ERROR(-6088):You are not allowed to be connected for the following reason: 
In license server, following problem occurs with license number 'TAB#XXXXXXXX': The device number of the license file has changed. Verify if resource 'flm.license.number' and 'flm.license.key' correspond to a valid license.

These are all to do with the protections we put in place to ensure that a licensed Genero installation is only run on the server for which it is licensed.  Recovering from a back-up to another server is no different to copying a licensed Genero installation from one server to another.

In a controlled movement of a Genero installation from a server to another, you would follow the New Activation Key Request (NAKR) procedure.  The description of New Activation Key Request available in the Glossary of Licensing Terms …

Once a license is installed and activated on a server, typically it can not be activated again on another server. For example, if you need to replace a server where Genero products are installed, you will need an activation key to install the license on the new server. You must request a new activation key from Four Js. A Temporary license may be needed at this time.

… following the links on Temporary Licenses refers to another page which has this paragraph …

Temporary licensing can be used in an emergency; if anything ever happens to your system and you need to get a Genero system up and running, you can use your existing license on a temporary basis on a new server.

A temporary license is a Genero license that has been installed onto a Genero installation but has not been formally activated.   The Genero installation will run just fine except that the temporary license will expire after 30 days.  You  are expected to formally activate the license during these 30 days or return to the original server.

The ability to license Genero temporarily is an important skill for a Genero system administrator to be able to use in unexpected situations.  If you have a valid license number, license key, maintenance key (all of which you keep a copy of  in a safe place. right? …) or a license string, you can get a Genero installation up and running on a new server without needing to contact Four Js.  This minimises business disruption and does not leave you in a position where you have developers, testers, end-users twiddling their thumbs waiting for a response from the Four Js Licensing team to process a NAKR.

The easiest way to explain how to license Genero temporarily is to follow the steps for when you are not connected to the internet in the options on the steps to license Genero , and to stop at certain point…

• “fgWrt command (no internet)”, if using a license string, note how after step 2 it says “The license is installed in temporary mode.”.  stop there.
• “fgWrt command (no internet)”, if using a license number and key, stop when you get to “Register The License”, that is stop after step 4.
• BDL Licenser (no internet), stop when you get to “Register The License”, that is stop after step 3.

When you stop at these points, you have a temporary license and have 30 days before you need to follow these steps to formally activate the license.

It is important that you have stored your up to date maintenance (and subscription) key.  You do not want a situation where you have upgraded to the latest maintenance release but the maintenance key you have kept in a safe place is from a few years ago.  You run the possibility that this latest maintenance release won’t run as the licensing mechanism thinks you are not under maintenance because you entered an old maintenance key.  Even if you update maintenance keys using the auto arguments associated with fglWrt, flmprg, you still need to make sure you have the new maintenance keys written down.  You can get the latest maintenance key from our online form .

I would consider that a Genero system administrator should have in their toolkit, the ability to install, and license a Genero installation to the temporary license stage without needing any input from Four Js personnel or accessing the Four Js website.  It maybe something you do once a year when you practise it, but you never know when you need it or what circumstances will evolve that you do need it.