Licensing

The licensing system introduced with BeeGFS 8 is designed to be non-obtrusive with no remote verification or telemetry and exists mainly to promote awareness and encourage compliance with the BeeGFS EULA. To use BeeGFS enterprise features, the libbeegfs-license package must now be installed on the same machine as the BeeGFS management service. Users of the BeeGFS Community Edition do not need this package but will be unable to access enterprise features, consistent with the terms of the BeeGFS EULA.

When licensing is enabled in BeeGFS, a few things happen based on the installed license:

  • Additional licensed functionality such as storage pools and quotas will be available.

  • A maximum number of machines that can participate in the file system will be enforced.

For the purpose of license enforcement a “machine” is defined as a single physical or virtual server running BeeGFS metadata and/or storage services. Multiple services running on the same machine, for example a multi-mode or HA deployment, do not individually count against the machine limit. The number of clients is not taken into consideration when counting machines for license enforcement.

Obtaining Licenses

Before upgrading to BeeGFS 8, enterprise users should first obtain a license key by contacting licensing@thinkparq.com. If you want to try out BeeGFS 8 or accidentally upgraded before obtaining a license key, temporary licenses are available through the self-service portal. Licenses can always be added/updated non-disruptively on existing systems, see below for details.

Configuring Licensing

These steps can be followed to enable licensing on a new or existing BeeGFS install:

  1. Install the libbeegfs-license package on all machines that may run the BeeGFS management service. If the BeeGFS management service can run on multiple machines, this package should be installed everywhere the BeeGFS management service can run.

    1. Note without the management service running on the same machine, installing this package has no effect, so it is safe to install anywhere it might be needed.

  2. On all machines where the BeeGFS management service can run, download your license file to /etc/beegfs/license.pem.

    1. Optionally use the management’s license-cert-file configuration option to specify an alternative path, for example in an HA environment if you use a shared disk/LUN for configuration and data, you could place the license in the same location to ensure it is always available on whichever machine is running the management service.

  3. Perform one of the following options to reload the license:

    1. If this is a new install simply start the management service. The following will be logged if the license verification library and license are installed correctly:

      [2024-12-05T14:49:31Z INFO ] Successfully initialized certificate verification library.
[2024-12-05T14:49:31Z INFO ] Successfully loaded license certificate: TMP-513679565

    2. If this is an existing deployment, from a machine with the beegfs-tools package installed run beegfs license --reload to install a new license without requiring any downtime. The license details will be returned on success.

  4. Optionally verify the details of the installed license with beegfs license.

Renewing or updating a license

If the license ever needs to be updated, for example when extending support contract duration or adding additional servers, simply place the new license file at the path configured in the management service and run the beegfs license --reload command. The new license will be applied immediately and without the need for a restart of the management service.