Licensing FAQ

The following questions are asked frequently about your licensing environment.

Licenses

What is a license file and what do I do with it?

The license file is a text file that contains the following:

• Product licensing information
• License Server name (or other binding identifier)
• Customer Success Services membership renewal date
• License expiration date (if applicable)
• Other system information

When you purchase a Citrix product and allocate licenses, a license file is generated. The License Server uses this file to determine whether to grant a license to a Citrix product. For more information, see License files.

Why would I return a license?

An example would be if you’re decommissioning a License Server, but you’re not ready to deploy existing licenses elsewhere. For more information, see Return allocations.

What happens to returned licenses?

Returned licenses are put back in the licensing pool. You can then allocate these licenses in any quantity at any time. After you return a license, remove the old license file from the License Server. For more information, see Return allocations and Modify licenses.

What happens when I hide a license?

Hide (previously called archiving) doesn’t remove licenses from an account. Hiding removes them from view. To view hide and unhide licenses, see Hide and unhide licenses.

How can I get a copy of my license file?

You can obtain a copy of your license file from your License Server. Alternatively, all purchased licenses and allocated license files are available from the secure My Account > Manage Licenses portal at www.citrix.com.

Allocating licenses

For more information about allocating licenses, see Allocate licenses.

What does allocating licenses mean?

When you allocate licenses, you apportion purchased licenses by product and License Server so you can split them among multiple environments or use cases. For example, your organization might own 1,000 licenses for the same product. You might want to use 800 in 1 location and 200 in another location. You can allocate 800 licenses to a License Server in the first location today, and allocate the remaining 200 later to a different License Server.

What’s the difference between a host ID type and a host ID?

The host ID type is the required binding type you supply to allocate licenses. The host ID is the License Server host name, MAC address, or other binding ID required to allocate licenses.

Why can’t I partially allocate some licenses?

Some licenses do not allow partial allocation.

The License Server

Can I rename the License Server?

License files run only on the License Server that is bind during the license allocation. License files contain the host name or binding identifier of the License Server you specify when you allocate the licenses. You cannot use the license file that you generated for a particular License Server or a MAC address (for an appliance), on a different License Server or appliance.

Create license files that reference the new server name or MAC address by returning allocations and generating the new file on citrix.com. For more information, see Manage Licenses on citrix.com.

If I upgrade my License Server does it affect my license files?

No. The License Server and all product licenses are fully backward compatible and do not introduce any issues into your environment. For more information about upgrading the License Server, see Upgrade the License Server.

Can a single License Server supply licenses to users connecting from different servers using different product editions?

Yes. One License Server can contain licenses for multiple editions of a Citrix product. The type of license checked out corresponds to the edition that is configured on the product server. A product server is configured to consume a specific edition of a license and checks out that license edition.

For more information and examples, see Single License Server and different servers using different product editions.

Where is the License Administration Console?

The License Administration Console is not available in License Server 11.16.6 and later. We recommend you use the Citrix Licensing Manager to manage the License Server.

Disaster recovery and maintenance

How do I license my disaster recovery site?

You can use the same licenses for your disaster recovery that you use for your production environment.

• Configure and manage your disaster recovery environment independently of your production environment.
• Don’t use both the production and backup License Servers to service license checkouts at the same time.
• Make only one License Server accessible at any one time
• The License Server in your disaster recovery environment must have an identical host name to the License Server in your production environment.

For more information, see Disaster recovery - back up and redundancy.