Manage the license of a private installation

Upload the license of a {{brand}} Private installation, activate it with no internet connection, and know what happens when it ends.

In short

{{brand}} Private - the edition you run on your own servers - needs a license. It names the plan every organization gets, how many people may hold a role that makes changes, and the day it ends. The installation checks it by itself and never calls out.

Before you start

Who: only a site admin. The Admin console is in the avatar menu of a site admin and nowhere else.
Plan: only a {{brand}} Private installation has a license. The hosted service has none.
First: the license file you received. For offline activation, a way to send a file to {{brand}} and get one back.

Upload a license

Open "Admin console" › "License".
Choose "Upload license file" and pick the file you received.
The page shows the plan, the seats in use and the day the license ends.

To renew, upload the next license as soon as you have it. It waits beside the one in place, shown as the next license, and takes over on its start day by itself.

Activate it with no internet connection

Choose "Download activation request". The file holds the installation ID, the license ID, the product version and the public half of this installation's own key - nothing else.
Send it to {{brand}} by email or any other way. You get an activation file back.
Choose "Upload activation file".

A new license works at once and must be activated within 14 days of its first upload - and by the day the page names, at the latest.

Send your seat use with a renewal

Under "Seat use" the page shows how many seats this license term has used: in use now, the most at once and the day it was first reached, and the most in each month. The server counts every hour.

Open "Admin console" › "License".
Under "Seat use", choose "Download signed seat use".
Send the file to {{brand}} with your renewal request.

The file is signed with this installation's own key, which your activation request already gave {{brand}}, so any change to it shows. Nothing is sent from the installation. If the server lost its keys - restored without them - it makes a new key: download a new activation request and send it with the file.

Good to know

Seats count the people who can make changes, across every organization. Read-only members are free. When every seat is taken, nobody new can be given a role that makes changes; nobody who already works is locked out.
The license binds administrators too. An administrator of the installation takes a seat to work in an organization, like everyone.
What the license sets is the most an administrator can give. A limit it names cannot be raised above its number, and a module it leaves out cannot be added to a plan.
Administrators are told in their inbox and by email 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before it ends. They are told again 7, 3 and 1 days before activation is due or the grace period ends.
After the end date the installation keeps working for the grace period - 30 days unless agreed otherwise. Then it becomes read-only: everything can be opened, exported and deleted, nothing added, changed or run, until a new license is uploaded. Nothing is deleted.
The hosted service has no license; there, plans are managed under Plans.

If something goes wrong

"This license was issued for another installation.": download the activation request on this page and send it to get one for this installation.
"The signature of this file does not match its content": upload the file exactly as you received it.
"That is an activation file, not a license. Upload it under Activation." (or the other way round): use the other button.
"This license ended on {day}. Ask for a new one."
The page warns about the clock: the server's clock was set back by more than a day. The license keeps working; correct the clock. If it once ran ahead by mistake and is right now, choose "The clock is right now".

/help/settings/private-single-sign-on
/help/settings/admin-plans
/help/settings/admin-console