Userspace Licensing

Workbench

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.