L I C E N S I N G
License Portal or Gateway –
The Choice is Yours
A license portal gives users a means to personally manage the licenses they have bought. This reduces the need for costly
support services, enables users to solve most of their questions and problems around licenses immediately as they happen, and
makes the entire process more enjoyable and satisfying for the client: A better service for less money.
CodeMeter License Central can provide a
whole spectrum of license portals: from
ready-to-use options like WebDepot or
the more customizable UserPortal to the
completely tailored solution, MyPortal. You
can also access the license portal of your
choice directly from within your software,
making the portal a gateway on the server
that implements your business logic with the
frontend seamlessly integrated in your product
in the form of a software activation wizard.
How it Works
Login
In order to transfer licenses, the user needs to
log into the portal, which can be done either
with a ticket or a regular user account.
Show Licenses
The user has access to a list of all their licenses
and the locations where they are currently kept.
Distribute Licenses
The original purpose of the license portal is
to handle the distribution of licenses and to
activate or deactivate them in the process. For
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activation, the licenses are moved from the
license portal into a CmContainer of some type;
for deactivation, they are simply returned to the
license portal. They can then be moved again
into a new CmContainer, making it possible for
licenses to be transferred. As the developer of
the licensed software, it is up to you to decide
whether licenses can be deactivated or moved
around in this way.
The entire process can happen directly online
if the chosen browser supports communi-
cation with the local CodeMeter Runtime. If
it does not or if the user wants to move the
license to another device, the activation needs
to take the detour of a file transfer, which
the license portal calls the offline mode. Key
to this process is the interaction between the
software activation wizard and the license
portal.
Recover Licenses
In the case of CmActLicenses in particular, it is
not unusual for the computer they were used
on to be “retired” or rebuilt in some form over
the course of the licenses’ life. The automatic
recovery function enables the user to reactiva-
te these licenses, while letting you decide how
often this can be done on one computer or on
changing devices. The limitation can optionally
even be defined for so many instances per
time period.
The old CmContainer that had held the
license at the time of its loss is automatically
blacklisted. By regularly checking this blacklist,
you can identify and, if need be, block these
CmContainers, which would invalidate the
licenses in question. You can even enforce this
operation by way of an auto-update.
Auto-Update
Auto-updates are licenses that were assigned
to a specific CmContainer upon their creation.
They can be retrieved in two possible ways:
The license portal includes an auto-update
function. The user picks a CmContainer to see
all licenses that are available for that container.
These licenses can be retrieved with one click
of the mouse.
Alternatively, all auto-updates are executed
in the background during any other regular
license transaction. For the user, this appears
as a single process, as the automatic updates