Overview of licensing

The Ensim Control Panel license determines the number of sites you can host and manage on your server for a stipulated time period. You receive the license key in the order confirmation email sent by Ensim after you purchase Ensim Control Panel from the Ensim Storefront (https://buy.ensim.com). The license key is a 25-character alphanumeric key.

You can choose to install the license during installation or when you log in to Ensim Control Panel after the installation. If you choose to apply the license after installation, you are prompted to register the license before you log into Ensim Control Panel.

# How licensing works

During installation, Ensim Control Panel creates a scheduled task (also called a cron job) on the Ensim Control Panel server. This scheduled task periodically checks whether Ensim Control Panel has contacted the Ensim License Server (ELS) to authenticate and register the license. If not, it forces Ensim Control Panel to contact the licensing server when you log in to Ensim Control Panel. If the license is not registered, you are prevented from logging into Ensim Control Panel.

During registration, Ensim Control Panel calls ELS and sends the following details for authenticating the license and subsequent registration.

- The Ensim Control Panel version installed on the server

- The number of sites hosted on the Ensim Control Panel server

- The Ensim Control Panel server's operating system name and version

- The Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the Ensim Control Panel server

- The IP address of the Ensim Control Panel server

- The MAC address of the Ensim Control Panel server's network card

After registration, you can view or upgrade your license information at any time.

# Renewing licenses

Ensim Control Panel periodically connects to ELS to determine the status of the license and automatically renews it on expiration. You do not have to manually renew your licenses. The license expires only if the call to ELS fails after repeated attempts. To resolve the issue, contact Ensim support.