Expanded License Access Rights

Software licenses are a valuable asset – and usually a limited resource. Their buyers will want to verify who actually uses them. This might not be an issue for a three-person start-up. At a large company or institution, however, it can, become essential that the licenses bought for a certain department or group of users are only used by those users. CodeMeter offers a granular and fully configurable rule set to allow just that.

By using the “Configuration – Server – License Access Permissions” menu on the WebAdmin interface, you can select one of two basic options. The simple mode lets you grant access rights to specified clients, who are defined by IP address or distinct names assigned to these hosts. The expanded mode offers far more granular options.

Rules

There are four specific rule options for defining users or user groups:

• Computer: IP address or an identifiable name of the computer
• Subnet: A defined part of the network with a specified suffix, e.g. 192.168.2.0/24
• User: A specified user name as delivered by the client. In Active Directory networks with preceding domain name, e.g. Company\test_user1
• Group: An Active Directory group, e.g. Company\test_group3

When using the Active Directory group option, all groups from the Active Directory are listed to simplify the selection.

Establishing the rules is intuitively easy: You can define whether access is allowed or prohibited for the specified users for each rule. If none of the defined rules apply for the given license, the final default setting (allow or deny) will go into effect.

Global Rules

The global rules define which rules will apply, if no specific rules are set to manage the license access.

Specific Rules

The rules can be configured for individual Firm Codes (per developer) or individual Product Codes (per application). The system always uses the rule set that matches the query best:

1. Product Code
2. Firm Code
3. Global Rules

In some cases, different Product Items with the same Product Code are present, for instance when the same software was bought with different license options. In such instances, the Product Items can be identified using the associated Product Item Text, and rules can be defined for each Product Item.

User Limits

On the application level (Product Code), the number of available licenses can be set for each rule, and licenses can be reserved. This can set specific limits e.g. for some departments, while keeping one license reserved for exclusive use.

Ease of Use

Once defined, any set of rules can be cloned with the push of a button, saving manual effort. Since the release of CodeMeter Runtime version 6.50, the rules for the expanded mode will apply immediately. CodeMeter does not have to be restarted. If a user already has access to a license, he or she will not be taken down, so there can be a temporary period of overlap. However, the most recent definitions will be applied the first time the relevant application is restarted.

 

KEYnote 35 – Edition Spring 2018