License Management

Overview

Posit Workbench uses a built-in license management system:

A license controls the number of users that can connect to Workbench.
Activation of the Job Launcher feature and the number of concurrent sessions that can be run.
Additionally, the license server supports named users as well as floating licenses.

Product tiers

Product tiers have been introduced for Workbench, called, Basic, Enhanced, and Advanced. These tiers include different features, number of server activations, and pricing than our current product tiers (currently called Base, Standard, and Enterprise).

Current license holders with renewals in 2024

Prior to a renewal in 2024, you will be unaffected by any packaging changes. Every renewal will receive a new license in 2024 that corresponds to a new product tier. This means you will continue to have full access to all of the features according to your existing license.

Product tier badges:

Feature documentation without a product tier badge label is part of the Basic tier.
Features that require elevated product tiers are labeled Enhanced and or Advanced:
- All features that are available with the Enhanced tier are also available for Advanced tier holders, so those features are labeled with both.
- Advanced tier product features are only accessible with the purchase of the Advanced tier.

License status

Posit Workbench requires a license key or license file for continued use. To request a free 30-day trial license, visit posit.co/trial-license. If you need assistance, contact your Posit Customer Success representative.

How do I check the status of my current license?

To check the status of your current license, use the license status command:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager status

Offline licensing status check

You can perform an offline check of your current license status using the following command:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager status-offline

License details

Posit Workbench licenses include details that display when you run the status command. These values are part of the license and can’t be changed without purchasing a different license. They are as follows:

Value	Meaning
`enable-launcher`	Whether the Job Launcher is enabled.
`sessions`	The maximum number of concurrent RStudio Pro Sessions that can be run; 0 if unlimited.
`users`	The maximum number of users that can connect to the server; 0 if unlimited.

Typically, Posit Workbench licenses either:

disable the Launcher but allow for unlimited local users and sessions, or
enable the Launcher and provide limits on users and/or sessions.

If you have questions about the most appropriate license for your use case, contact sales@posit.co for help.

License warnings

When the license is within 15 days of expiration, a warning displays to users inside RStudio Pro sessions. The warning indicates the number of days remaining in the license.

You can change the length of the 15-day warning period with the license-warning-days option, which can be set to 0 to disable license warnings altogether:

/etc/rstudio/rserver.conf

license-warning-days=0

Warning

Disabling license warnings will cause your license to expire without warning you or your users. Change this setting only if you have other processes in place to ensure you renew the license prior to expiration.

Activation options

After purchasing a Posit Workbench license, you will receive a license file used to activate the license on a given system. Activate your license file with the instructions described in the License file section below.

License file activation (recommended)

Almost all installations use license files. This is the recommended approach.
License key activation

Older installations might use license keys instead of license files. To switch from license keys to license files, see instructions in the Licensing FAQ.
Floating licensing with a persistent license server

Older containerized installations might use floating license keys instead of license files. To switch from a floating license key to license files, see instructions in the Licensing FAQ.
- With direct internet access
- Offline activation

License file

A license file is an encrypted text file with a name having the shape <expiration-date>_<product-code>_<organization>_<license-key>.lic.

The license file fully describes the purchased product license. It includes details such as the expiration date and entitlements permitted by the license. License files do not communicate with an external licensing provider, making them suitable for containerized, offline, and air-gapped environments. License files are the recommended way to provide a license to Posit Workbench.

You must ensure that the license file is secured, used only in your environment, and within the bounds of your license agreement.

When a *.lic file exists in the /var/lib/rstudio-server/ directory, other licensing methods are bypassed.

The Licensing FAQ provides information about common issues and questions that you may have when activating or switching your current activations to license files. If the issue persists, please reach out to Posit Support using the Posit Support form.

Activation

Transfer the license file to the server hosting Posit Workbench, ensure ownership and read permissions for the Posit Workbench service user, and activate it with the commands:

sudo chown rstudio-server <license-file>.lic
sudo chmod 0600 <license-file>.lic
sudo cp -a <license-file>.lic /var/lib/rstudio-server/.
sudo rstudio-server restart

These commands copy the license file into the /var/lib/rstudio-server directory and ensure it is owned by the default server user (rstudio-server) and cannot be read by other users.

Note

The default Posit Workbench server-user user is rstudio-server. If you’ve configured a different server-user, ensure that user has file ownership.

You will need to restart Posit Workbench after activation for the licensing changes to take effect.

Deactivation

You must deactivate your license before moving it to another system. If you are using a license file in a container, there is no need to worry about deactivation when the container is terminated.

Deactivate your license file by removing it from the /var/lib/rstudio-server/ directory:

sudo rm /var/lib/rstudio-server/<license-file>.lic
sudo rstudio-server restart

License key

Note

Posit recommends using license file activation rather than license key activation. License files work well in all environments including ephemeral, container-based, or air-gapped environments. See License activation methods for more details.

In rare cases, you might need to activate a license key as described below.

A license key is a combination of letters and numbers with the shape AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD-EEEE-FFFF-GGGG.

Online activation

Note

Connectivity requirements

To activate or deactivate Posit Workbench, internet connectivity is required for communicating with the licensing server. More information on specific networking access is available on this Posit documentation Licensing page. If your server is behind an internet proxy or not connected to the internet at all, the sections below describe what’s required to successfully activate via a license key, but most customers are best served by using license files.

Additionally, your server must have a synchronized system clock, using ntp or some other clock syncing service. If the server’s clock is sufficiently incorrect, licensing verification fails.

If you have internet access and are not using an internet proxy, activate your license key with the commands below:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager activate <license-key>
sudo rstudio-server restart

Note

Posit uses wyDay’s LimeLM TurboActivate and TurboFloat for license management as an approved part of our software delivery infrastructure. As such, for online license key activation, you need to allow outbound access to wyday.com.

If needed, add the port number from where the activation key is being downloaded so it can be added to a safe sites list by your networking team:

Address | https://www.wyday.com
Port | 443

Proxy servers

If your server is behind an internet proxy, you may need to add an additional command line flag indicating the address and credentials required to communicate through the proxy. This may not be necessary if either the http_proxy or all_proxy environment variable is defined (these are read and used by the license manager when available).

If you do need to specify a proxy server explicitly, use the --proxy command line parameter. For example:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager --proxy=http://127.0.0.1/ activate <license-key>
sudo rstudio-server restart

Proxy settings can include a host-name, port, and username/password if necessary. The following are all valid proxy configurations:

http://127.0.0.1/
http://127.0.0.1:8080/
http://user:pass@127.0.0.1:8080/

If the port is not specified, the license manager defaults to port 1080.

Online deactivation

If you want to move your license of Posit Workbench to another system, first deactivate it on the old system with the command:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager deactivate

Then run the activation command on the new system.

Offline activation

Note

If your system has no connection to the internet, it’s also possible to perform an offline activation. To do this, we recommend using our offline activation app, which will walk you through the process: Posit Offline Activation

To activate your license offline, you first generate an offline activation request as follows:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager activate-offline-request <license-key>

Executing this command prints an offline activation request to the terminal. Copy and paste the entirety of this request into our offline self-service application, or submit a request using the Posit Support form. You will receive a reply with an .xml file output that can be used to activate offline as follows:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager activate-offline <activation-file>

After activation, restart the Posit Workbench server:

$ sudo rstudio-server restart

Offline deactivation

If you are renewing your license or want to move your Workbench license to another system, you can perform license deactivation offline by executing the following:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager deactivate-offline

Executing this command prints an offline deactivation request to the terminal which you should copy and paste and enter into the offline activation application, or send to Posit Support using the Posit Support form.

Then run the activation command on the new system.

Floating licensing

Note

In rare cases, you might need to activate a license key on a floating license server as described below.

To use floating licensing, you run a small, lightweight server, which holds a license that grants you the right to run a certain number of concurrent Posit Workbench instances.

When Posit Workbench starts, it will connect to the license server and obtain a temporary lease, releasing it when Posit Workbench is stopped. Using this method, you can have any number of Posit Workbench instances, so long as you do not run more instances at once than specified in your license.

Floating license keys

A license key which distributes floating license leases is not the same as a traditional license key, and the two cannot be used interchangeably. If you have purchased traditional license keys and wish to exchange them for a floating license key, or vice versa, please get in touch with Posit Support using the Posit Support form.

The Posit Workbench License Server

The Posit Workbench License Server supplies licenses to Posit Workbench. It is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. A license server can supply licenses to any platform; for instance, you can run your license server on Windows and distribute licenses to Posit Workbench instances running Linux.

Linux

Note

The Posit License Server site contains Linux license server downloads for all Posit products. Download and install the license server for Posit Workbench. You then activate your license key with the command:

sudo dpkg -i rsp-license-server-1.1.2-x86_64.deb
sudo rsp-license-server activate <license-key>
sudo rsp-license-server start

The file /etc/rsp-license-server.conf contains configuration settings for the Posit Workbench License Server, including the network port to listen on and any proxy settings required for connecting to the Internet.

Mac and Windows

The Posit License Server site contains downloads for the Mac and Windows license servers. These require a few additional configuration steps. They can be set up as follows (order is important):

Download the license server (TurboFloatServer) appropriate to your platform, and place it in the directory where you wish it to run.
Copy the file /usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/license-manager.conf to the same directory as TurboFloatServer, and change its name to TurboActivate.dat.
If activating online, run the command TurboFloatServer.exe -a="ABCD-EFGH-IJKL-MNOP-QRST-UVWX".
If activating offline, follow the offline activation steps. Note that it is necessary to supply the fully qualified path to file arguments to TurboFloatServer, even if they are in the same directory as the executable.
After successful activation, TurboFloatServer.exe -i with administrator permissions. This will install the license server as a service that will start automatically and run in the background.

For additional help with Mac and Windows license server installation and configuration, refer to the official TurboFloat Server documentation.

License Server hardware requirements

While the license server is designed to distribute licenses to ephemeral virtual machines or containers, which may move freely between hosts, the license server itself must stay on the same physical host on which it was activated.

It is acceptable to run the license server inside a container or a virtual machine, as long as the container or the VM always runs on the same hardware. Stopping the license server, moving it to a different physical host, and starting it again will cause it to become deactivated. Because it’s often impractical to try to ensure that the server only runs on a particular host, we recommend running the license server outside containers and virtualization software.

Note that the system requirements for the license server are very low, so it can be run on almost any server. If your environment will not allow for ensuring that the server stays on a single physical host, please contact Posit Support using the Posit Support form to discuss alternate licensing options.

License Server offline activation

Note

The rsp-license-server activate command requires an internet connection. If your license server has no connection to the Internet it’s also possible to perform an offline activation. The process for doing this on the license server is identical to the process used to activate Posit Workbench offline. Generate an offline activation request as follows:

sudo rsp-license-server activate-offline-request <license-key>

Executing this command will print an offline activation request to the terminal which you should copy and paste and then send to Posit Support using the Posit Support form. You will receive a reply with a file attachment that can be used to activate offline as follows:

sudo rsp-license-server activate-offline <activation-file>
sudo rsp-license-server restart

License Server deactivation

If you are permanently decommissioning your license server, or need to transfer its license to a different license server, you should deactivate (remove) its license as follows:

sudo rsp-license-server deactivate

Using floating licensing

Once your license server is up and running, you need to tell Posit Workbench to use floating licensing instead of traditional licensing.

/etc/rstudio/rserver.conf

server-license-type=remote

The value remote indicates that Posit Workbench should connect to a remote licensing server to obtain a license; the value local can be used to explicitly specify traditional (local) activation.

Then, tell Posit Workbench which licensing server to connect to:

sudo rstudio-server license-manager license-server <server-hostname-or-ip>
sudo rstudio-server restart

You only need to run the license-server command once; Posit Workbench saves the server name and will use it on each subsequent startup.

When operating Workbench within a containerization system like Docker, it may also be necessary to specify the RSW_LICENSE_SERVER environment variable on the container host. Assuming you use an official Workbench docker image, the container’s startup script will check whether this environment variable is defined as it starts the Workbench server process, and automatically run the necessary license server commands. This prevents you from having to access the container and manually run these commands every time. As with the RSW_LICENSE environment variable, placing it in a .bashrc or any similar rc file is recommended, so that you only have to set it once.

Depending on your system configuration, it is possible that the Posit Workbench service will be started before the service which allows hostname resolution (this is known to be the case for example on some Amazon EC2 systems). If this is the case, you’ll want to specify the license server using a private IP address rather than a hostname, so that Posit Workbench can acquire a license immediately when starting up.

Note

If you are renewing your floating license offline or if you want to move your floating license for Posit Workbench to another system, then you should first perform license deactivation offline.

To renew your floating license offline or to move your floating license, run the following to perform license deactivation offline:

sudo rstudio-server deactivate-offline-request <license-key>

Specifying a license server

Workbench supports three methods for connecting to a license server. You can select the method by specifying the license server as follows:

Connecting over TCP

Example

sudo rstudio-server license-manager license-server mylicensehost:9403

By default, the Posit Workbench License Server listens via raw TCP on port 8989. If you specify the only the hostname or IP address of the license server, this the kind of connection you’ll get.

If you wish to use a different port, you will need to specify the port in /etc/rsp-license-server.conf, and specify license-server to Posit Workbench as <server-hostname-or-ip:port>.

Connecting over HTTPS

Example

sudo rstudio-server license-manager license-server https://mylicensehost/

You can also connect to the license server via HTTPS rather than raw TCP. This can be useful when using proxies or load balancers in front of the license server. Note that the license server does not use HTTPS by default, so you can only use this connectivity method if you have configured your license server to use HTTPS.

Configuring the license server for HTTPS support is outside the scope of this guide. You can read instructions here:

Configuring TurboFloat Server for HTTPS Communication

Connecting to a hosted server

Example

sudo rstudio-server license-manager license-server 871A2BFA-87C5-11E9-BD16-4749DB7B7927

Finally, if you are connecting to a hosted license server, specify the UUID of the server rather than its hostname. Hosted license servers are run by our licensing vendor, WyDay, and do not require you to run anything in your own network. Read more about setting up a hosted license server and getting a UUID here:

Creating a LicenseChest Server

Configuring license leases

When using floating licenses, you can optionally determine how long the license leases last by setting the lease length value on the licensing server. This value is in seconds, so for instance to make license leases last 30 minutes you would use the following syntax:

/etc/rsp-license-server.conf

<lease length="1800"/>

The lease length controls how frequently the Posit Workbench instances need to contact the licensing server to renew their license leases in order for the lease to remain valid.

A shorter lease length will increase tolerance to failures on Posit Workbench instances by making leases available for reuse more quickly. Posit Workbench will release its lease immediately if shut down normally, but if abnormally terminated, the lease will not be released until it expires.

A longer lease length will increase tolerance to transient failures on the network and the Posit Workbench License Server. Any such issues that can be resolved before the lease is due for renewal won’t interrupt use of Posit Workbench.

We generally recommend using a longer lease length. Use a short lease length only if your environment routinely encounters abnormal terminations of the server or the container/instance on which it runs.

License server downtime tolerance

Posit Workbench does not wait until its lease has fully expired before it renews it. It renews its lease when it is halfway to expiry. For instance, if you use 30 minute leases, Posit Workbench will actually renew its lease every 15 minutes.

This means that it is possible to take down the license server for a short period of time without affecting any running Posit Workbench instances. Because of the aforementioned behavior, no existing lease will be more than halfway to expiry if the server goes down.You have a grace period of N/2 (where N is the length of the lease) during which the server can be offline without consequences. For instance, if you use 30 minute leases, your license server can be offline for 15 minutes.

Lease expiration and renewal

Under normal conditions Posit Workbench will automatically renew its license lease in a configurable interval as described above. However, there are situations in which it will be unable to do so, such as a network problem, or an issue on the host running the license server.

When Posit Workbench cannot obtain a license lease, either because there are no leases currently available or because it can’t reach the licensing server, it will begin automatically attempting to acquire a lease every 10 seconds. This interval is configurable; for instance, to retry every 30 seconds instead you would set the following value:

/etc/rstudio/rserver.conf

license-retry-seconds=30

If you don’t want Posit Workbench to attempt to reestablish a license lease automatically, set the value to 0 to disable retries. In this case you will need to manually restart Posit Workbench in order to reestablish the lease. This can be useful if you often run more instances than you have keys for, and wish to have more control over which Posit Workbench instances receive license leases from the limited pool on the license server.

Troubleshooting floating licensing

To validate that the license server has been successfully activated, run the activation-status command. This will report the version of the server as well as the license key and the number of available slots.

sudo rsp-license-server activation-status

If your server is activated but you’re still having trouble with floating licensing, you can tell the Posit Workbench License Server to emit more detailed logs. Change the log level to notification:

/etc/rsp-license-server.conf

<log file="/var/log/rstudio-licensing.log" level="notification"/>

Then, restart the license server, tail the licensing log, and start your Posit Workbench instances.

sudo rsp-license-server restart
tail -f /var/log/rstudio-licensing.log

At the notification level, the licensing log will tell you the total number of licenses associated with your key, and how many are currently in use. It will also notify you when Posit Workbench instances acquire leases, and when those leases are released, renewed, or expired. No rotation is done for this log, so it’s recommended to use the warning level in production.

Userspace licensing

In a standard installation of Posit Workbench, licensing configuration operations require elevated access (e.g., via sudo). This is appropriate given the product will normally be installed and activated by an administrator on behalf of multiple user accounts.

Alternatively, the licensing system may be switched to a “userspace” model where the licensing commands are available to a non-elevated user account. This is a system-wide setting; it is not possible to mix both models on a single system.

Switching to userspace licensing

Before switching, stop the server, and deactivate any existing license-key or license-server.

sudo rstudio-server stop
sudo rstudio-server license-manager deactivate
sudo rstudio-server license-manager clear-license-server

Next, disable the standard system-level licensing mode by deleting the “verify” file.

sudo rm /var/lib/rstudio-server/verify

Initialize the license system in userspace mode. This command must not be run elevated, but as the Posit Workbench account (normally rstudio-server) as described in Server account.

rstudio-server license-manager initialize --userspace

Confirm that the mode was successfully changed.

rstudio-server license-manager verify
Trial-Type: Verified
Status: Evaluation
Days-Left: 5
License-Scope: User

The line License-Scope: User indicates successful switch to userspace licensing (versus the default setting of System).

At this point, the user may perform licensing commands without using “sudo”, such as activating a license-key or configuring a license-server.