White Paper
CmActLicense on a Guest System
A CmActLicense is capable of being activated on a guest system. As the software publisher, you decide whether
you allow or prohibit this.
SmartBind – A custom recipe
The CodeMeter Runtime Service detects automatically whether it is on a guest system. When identifying and
prioritizing the different hardware features, CodeMeter SmartBind uses a custom formula, chosen specifically for
virtual environments, which gives much higher priority to features that relate to the underlying real hardware
than to features that are only virtual. Features that change when moving to a different machine are also given
such higher weighting.
Guest
CodeMeter
operating system
Virtual hardware
Application
Guest
operating system
Application
CodeMeter
Host
Application
Guest
Application
Guest
Image 10:
CmActLicense in
a guest system
Virtual hardware
Virtualization software
Host operating system
CodeMeter
Real hardware
Protecting against cloned guest systems
CodeMeter SmartBind offers a CmActLicense maximum protection against the cloning of entire guest systems.
When using the tolerance settings “medium” or “strict,” SmartBind automatically detects that the guest system
has been copied to a different hardware and flags the CmActLicense as corrupt and unusable. Since the fingerprint
is included as a cryptographic key in CodeMeter protection, the CmActLicense cannot simply be “repaired” by
patching a query – without the correct hardware features; the CmActLicense cannot be used anymore.
Moving the guest system
If a guest system is moved within the same host system, the CmActLicense remains valid. This means that any
changes in the configuration introduced by the user will not automatically mean a support incident for you as the
software vendor. This represents no threat for your business, since a moved guest system can normally not be used
multiple times on the same host system.
Moving a guest system to another host system has two different aspects to be considered. It is a potential threat,
since the same guest system and, by implication, the same license would be present in duplicate form. At the
same time, it constitutes the essence of a high availability solution. As the software publisher, it is up to you to
decide on the configuration of CodeMeter. CodeMeter SmartBind set to “medium” or “strict” will detect any
move to a different host system with better than 98% reliability. This is the best detection rate allowed by current
technology.
By setting SmartBind to “loose” or using a weaker bind, such as a “random number” or “IP address,” you can
determine that a license on a guest system can be taken to a different host system. This gives your clients the
ability to establish a simple high availability solution.
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