Activations

>What is an Activation?

>Prerequisites for Activations

>Who is an Activatee?

>Activation Status

>Activating a Product

>Produce and Push

>Burning a Product Key

>Activating Multiple Line Items in a Single Entitlement

>Viewing Activation Attributes

>Actions for Activations

>Viewing and Applying the License File (V2CP)

>Managing Activatees

 

>New to Sentinel EMS?
See How to Use Sentinel EMS?

>More about Entitlements
See Creating an Entitlement

What is an Activation?

An activation refers to a method of generating a license (or license code) for a product. The license may be generated using the machine-specific locking code of a computer to ensure that the product can be used in the system to which it is locked.

Sentinel EMS enables you to perform an activation even before the start date of the line item has been reached, so that you can generate and apply a license in advance. Even though you apply the license in advance, the license takes effect only on its start date. This avoids a delta while using a current license and applying the new one, and ensures that the license cannot be misused if activated earlier.

Who is an Activatee?

An activatee is the user (individual or customer) that "owns" and therefore, performs the activation. Sentinel EMS enables you to associate an activatee during activation using the Activatee Email attribute.

For details on whether you must associate an activatee with an activation, see Activatee Email.

For more information on working with activatees, see Managing Activatees.

Prerequisites for Activations

The following are the prerequisites for activations:

Entitlement Prerequisites for Activations

>A role that includes Activation Management permissions. At minimum, you need the Add permission. For details, see Roles.

>The entitlement must be marked as "complete".

>When activating multiple products simultaneously, the products must meet the same conditions defined for Entitlement as a Whole.

TIP   To verify that the products that you plan to activate all belong to the same enforcement, expand the entitlement and, under Associated Products, expand each product. Then, in the Associated Features tab, click the license model link and look at the Enforcement Technology value.

>The Allow Activation attribute of the entitlement must be set to "Yes". For details, see Define Entitlement Attributes.

>In the line item:

The available quantity must be more than zero.

The end date must not be in the past.

Installation Prerequisites for Activations

Installation prerequisites to enable end users to perform self-service, online activation through the Sentinel EMS customer portal:

>The Sentinel Run-time Environment must be installed on the end user computer. To achieve this, distribute Sentinel Run-time Environment together with your application. For example, your application might call the Sentinel Run-time Environment installer. For instructions, see Sentinel LDK Installation Guide.

>Sentinel EMS must be configured to work with Sentinel Admin Control Center as described below:

a.Open Sentinel Admin Control Center (http://localhost:1947).

b. In the Sentinel Admin Control Center > Options area, click Configuration.

c.In the Configuration for Sentinel License Manager page, click the Network tab.

d.In the EMS URL area, add the domain for Sentinel EMS. (Do not include a trailing "/" at the end of the URL.)
Example: http://localhost:8080/ems

e.Click Submit.

Installation prerequisites to activate or update a product using a C2V file:

> You must use the same Sentinel EMS instance where the entitlement was originally generated—unless you check in the C2V file to the new Sentinel EMS instance first. For details, see Checking In a Sentinel Key. (If the C2V file was originally generated in another system outside of Sentinel EMS, contact Thales Customer Support for assistance.)

This applies to updating all key types—Sentinel HL and Sentinel SL (including CL).

>You must have access to the C2V file that was generated on the end user's machine.

Activation Status

The Status attribute for an activation can be one of the following:

>Activated: The line item is activated. License was generated.

NOTE   The search for expired licenses and licenses available for renewal is available only from the Sentinel EMS REST API reference.

Activating a Product

You can activate products using the Entitlements page.

To activate a product:

1.Navigate to the Entitlements page.

2.Select and expand the entitlement that you want to activate.

3.Select the line items of the entitlement that you want to activate.

4.Click Activate. The Activate Product page appears as shown:

 
 
 

5.Specify the Activation Attributes. For details, see Define Activation Attributes.

6.In the Generate Licenses pane:

a.Select C2V, Customer Keys, or EID, depending on how you want to activate the selected products.

If you selected... Do this... Useful if...
C2V

In the Upload C2V box, specify the location of the C2V file received from the customer. You can drag and drop the C2V file or browse to the and select the file. The selected C2V file is shown as "C2V" (not the C2V file name).

You have access to the C2V file for the customer's machine.
Customer Keys

Select one or more Sentinel keys for which you want to activate the products. You can expand each line item to view the associated products, associated memory files, and key attributes. For details on any of these properties, see Sentinel Key Attributes.

When you select a customer key, the Complete Activation button is enabled.

The entitlement is assigned to a customer, and you do not have access to the C2V file for the customer's machine, or you prefer to use Sentinel keys to generate a license.

This option is available only if the entitlement is assigned to a customer and at least one Sentinel key is associated with that customer.

EID

1.

Do one of the following:

>If the EID is displayed in the Enter EID for Sentinel Keys box and the associated Sentinel keys are displayed in the grid, skip to step 2.

>If the EID is not displayed in the Enter EID for Sentinel Keys box, enter the full EID from the entitlement and click Get Keys. The Sentinel keys associated with the EID are displayed in the grid.

>If you want to retrieve the keys for a different entitlement, enter the new, full EID in the box and click Get Keys. The list of Sentinel keys in the grid is refreshed.

2.

Select one or more Sentinel keys for which you want to activate the products. The Complete Activation button is enabled.

The entitlement is not assigned to a customer, and you do not have access to the C2V file for the customer's machine, or you prefer to use Sentinel keys to generate a license.

This option locates the Sentinel keys that are already associated with the entitlement. This enables you to activate products in entitlements that use other attributes, such as External ID, Ref ID, or User Email, to link entitlements to customers whose details are stored in an external system, for example.

b.(Optional) Select the Remove licenses from keys before applying updates checkbox to clear any pre-existing licenses from the selected keys.

7.Click Complete Activation to activate the product and generate the license certificate.

Define Activation Attributes

Activation-related attributes are specified in the Define Activation Attributes pane, described below.

(This section describes how to define activation attributes when activating a product. To view the list of attributes that are included after a license is successfully activated, see Viewing Activation Attributes.)

Attribute Description Required/Optional Valid Values
Activatee Email

Email address of the user (individual or customer) who is responsible for or performs the activation.

You can click Add button to add the activatee email as a user if the activatee details do not exist.

For Produce and Push, the activatee email is pre-populated if a user is associated with the customer that defined in the entitlement. You can remove or modify the email address if needed.

Required only for the following:

>When User Registration is set to Mandatory in an entitlement.

See also: Who is an Activatee?

>A valid email address

>Cannot contain: spaces and \ () [] : ; “ <>

>Cannot start with a '.'

>Cannot contain double ..

>Cannot contain double @@

Activation Comments

Comments to include in the activation.

(When burning a key, this box is displayed in the line item for each selected key instead of the Define Activation Attributes pane.)

Optional

Maximum: 500 characters

Additional Attributes

Time Zone

The time zone specified for this activation.

By default, the start date and the end date of a license belonging to a customer are calculated according to the customer's time zone.

You can specify another time zone to override the existing customer time zone.

For example, the license being generated may require a different validity period than the one specified by the existing customer time zone.

The activation time zone overrides the customer time zone and the licenses are generated accordingly. This change is limited to the current activation and does not modify the time zone specified for the customer.

Required For a list of time zone values, refer to the Sentinel EMS REST API Guide.
Send Notification Sends a notification to the user email defined in the entitlement after activation. Required Yes OR No

Produce and Push

When you activate products using produce and push, you generate a cloud license and push the license to the Thales service-hosted, cloud license manager server in a single step.

After produce and push is performed, the vendor or the customer's administrator user can create machine accounts for end users, so that end users can access the protected application as soon as they receive their unique identity credentials and the protected application.

On the Sentinel EMS customer portal, a customer's administrator user can create and manage machine accounts for end users, view the list of activated products, and manage the list of registered machines on which each end user can access protected applications. The vendor can also perform these tasks on the Sentinel EMS vendor portal.

Each time you use produce and push, a single activation is performed. The activation is then deducted from the total quantity.

Prerequisites for Produce and Push

>Sentinel LDK Cloud Licensing (CL) must be available to Sentinel EMS. For details on the various ways to consume cloud licenses that are produced and pushed, see User-Based Licensing and Machine Accounts.

>The entitlement must:

Be assigned to a customer. For details, see Customers.

Include a customer's administrator user that is associated with that customer. Required only if you plan to delegate user-based licensing or machine account management to the customer via the Sentinel EMS customer portal. For details, see Users.

>The products in the entitlement must:

Use one of the SL_AdminMode locking types. For details, see Locking Type.

Include features whose license model supports concurrency on a network and specifies the required number of concurrent instances. For details, see Configure License Model and Sentinel LDK Enforcement - License Models.

To activate products using Produce and Push:

1.Navigate to the Entitlements page.

2.Select and expand the entitlement that you want to activate.

3.If the entitlement is not configured as Entitlement as a Whole, then select the product line items that you want to activate. Otherwise, skip to the next step.

The Produce & Push button is enabled if the Locking Type is one of the Sentinel SL AdminMode key types.

4.Click Produce & Push. The Activate Products page opens.

5.In the Define Activation Attributes pane, modify the attributes if needed.

If the customer's administrator user is associated with this customer (recommended), then the Activatee Email value is pre-populated with the email address of the user that handles User-Based Licensing or Machine Accounts for this customer. For details, see User Type. You can modify or remove the email address from this box if needed.

6.In the Generate Licenses pane, do one of the following:

If this is the first time that you are generating a CL key using produce and push, a message in the Generate Licenses pane informs you that there are no CL keys yet for this customer.

Click Produce & Push. The CL key is generated and pushed to the Thales service-hosted, cloud license manager server. You can see the newly added key in the Activation Details area, which displays the status of the key and the key ID.

No keys generated yet using produce and push

If produce and push was performed at least once, then the Generate Licenses pane lists the generated CL keys.

At least one key generated yet using produce and push

Do one of the following:

Apply the license to the existing key. (Generally, only one key is required per customer. If you see multiple keys, you can apply the updates to all relevant keys.)

i. Select the required key. You can expand each line item to view the associated products, associated memory files, and key attributes. For details on any of these properties, see Sentinel Key Attributes.

ii.(Optional) Select the Remove licenses from keys before applying updates check box to clear any pre-existing licenses from the selected key.

iii.Click Produce & Push. The CL key is updated and pushed to the Thales service-hosted, cloud license manager server.

Otherwise:

Only if required, set Create a service-hosted cloud-licensing key to Yes to create another CL key. Although you can create multiple CL keys for the same customer, we recommend that you create a single CL key for each customer for ease of maintenance.

7.Click Done. If the activatee email address was provided, then a license certificate is sent to the activatee. The license certificate email does not include a license string because the license is applied automatically without the need for user input. Instead of a license string, the end user's machine can access the cloud license directly using the installed identity credentials.

The generated key is displayed on the Activations page. Navigate to the Sentinel Keys page to view the key and check its status. If you do not know the key ID, you may want to search by customer to locate the key. Keys are pushed asynchronously, so, rarely, there may be a delay, which is indicated by the Out-of-Sync status. If you see this indicator, try to restart the synchronization process by clicking the Synchronize button Synchronize button in the Actions column. If synchronization fails, then contact Thales Customer Support for assistance. After successful synchronization, the status is updated accordingly.

8.(Optional) You or the customer's administrator user can now create a machine account to notify the end user that the protected application containing the activated products is available for use. For details, see Machine Accounts.

Burning a Product Key

You can write (burn) an entitlement to connected Sentinel HL keys.

Prerequisites for Burning a Key

>Sentinel Run-time Environment must be installed on the computer on which you are burning the key. For instructions, see Sentinel LDK Installation Guide.

> The required Sentinel HL keys must be connected to the same Sentinel EMS instance where the entitlement was originally generated—unless you check in the C2V file to the new Sentinel EMS instance first. For details, see Checking In a Sentinel Key. (If the C2V file was originally generated in another system outside of Sentinel EMS, contact Thales Customer Support for assistance.)

>Sentinel EMS must be configured to work with Sentinel Admin Control Center as described below:

a.Open Sentinel Admin Control Center (http://localhost:1947).

b. In the Sentinel Admin Control Center > Options area, click Configuration.

c.In the Configuration for Sentinel License Manager page, click the Network tab.

d.In the EMS URL area, add the domain for Sentinel EMS. (Do not include a trailing "/" at the end of the URL.)
Example: http://localhost:8080/ems

e.Click Submit.

To burn a Sentinel HL key:

1.Navigate to the Entitlements page.

2.Select and expand the entitlement that you want to activate.

3.Select the line items that you want to activate. If the Locking Type is one of the Sentinel HL key types, the Burn Key button is enabled.

4.Click Burn Key. The Activate Products page opens.

5.In the Define Activation Attributes pane, modify the attributes if needed.

6.In the Select Keys to Burn area:

a.Select the required keys.

If the required keys are not listed in the Select Keys to Burn pane, click Refresh to display them.

To locate keys that are connected to your machine, click Blink. The LED of the selected keys blinks for five seconds.

b.(Optional) In the Activation Comments box, enter a comment (up to 500 characters).

c.(Optional) Select the Remove licenses from keys before applying updates checkbox to clear any pre-existing licenses from the selected keys.

7.Click Burn. The entitlement is written to the Sentinel HL key and the production totals (Total Quantity and Remaining Quantity) are updated. The key is marked as Burned.

Activating Multiple Line Items in a Single Entitlement

You can activate more than one line item in an entitlement simultaneously.

To activate multiple line items in a single entitlement:

1.Navigate to the Entitlements page.

2.Expand a completed entitlement. Under Associated Products, select the check boxes for the line items that you want to activate together.

All line items must be activated together for:

Entitlements where Entitlement as a Whole is set to "Yes"

Multiple line items must have the same locking type.

3.Click Activate.

4.In the Activate Product Keys page, enter the Activatee Email and other activation attributes as required. For more information, see Define Activation Attributes.

5.Click Complete Activation.

Activating Multiple Line Items Across Entitlements

Viewing Activation Attributes

After you activate a license, you can view the activation attributes in the Activations grid.

To view the activation attributes:

1.Navigate to the Activations page.

2.Select and expand the activation for which you want to view the activation attributes.

3.Click the Activation Attributes tab. The attributes for the selected activation are displayed.

The following table lists some of the common activation attributes that are displayed in addition to the attributes defined during the activation process. An activation may also include enforcement-specific attributes and custom attributes.

Attribute Description
Status The status of the activation. For possible values, see Activation Status.
AID The activation ID.
Activation Date

The date that the license was activated.

Earliest Start Date

The activation date, which is the earliest date that end users can potentially start using a license.

Latest End Date

The latest date on which a license can expire based on all of the licenses in the activation.

Sentinel EMS examines the license data for every feature included in the entitlement and displays the latest possible end date available. In some cases, this may be an estimated end date, for example, if all of the feature licenses are set to start the first time that the license is used, then the end date is based on the specified number of days after the estimated start date, such as in the Time from First Use License Model.

Scenario Latest End Date

The license model for every feature in the activation contains a defined end date.

The latest possible end date based on the defined end dates in all of the licenses.

Example: Suppose an activation includes three features whose license end dates are set to July 1, 2024, August 15. 2024, and September 30, 2024, respectively. In this case, the value displayed for this attribute is 09/30/2024, which is the latest available end date.

Similarly, if all of the licenses are defined with the same end date, then that value is displayed.

At least one of the license models is the Time from First Use license model, and that license model contains the latest expected end date for all of the licensed features in the activation.

ClosedView example

If the end date for Time From First Use is 365 days, then the date displayed is 365 days after the activation date. In this scenario, the latest end date is the estimated end date based on the activation date. If the license is first used only two weeks after the license is generated, then the actual end date will be two weeks later than the value listed here. For this specific license model, the latest end date is just an approximation because, unlike all other license models, the actual start date depends on when the license is actually used for the first time. The actual end date will depend on the actual start date.

At least one feature license in the activation does not contain a defined end date.

This occurs when using the following license models:

>Perpetual license model

>Execution Count license model

"Never Expires"

The activation includes only products without features. For example, the products may include memory files instead.

Viewing Revocation Attributes

You can view the revocation attributes in the Activations grid.

To view the revocation attributes:

1.Navigate to the Activations page.

2.Select and expand the activation for which you want to view the revocation attributes.

3.Click the Revocation Attributes tab. The attributes for the selected revocation are displayed.

The following table lists some of the common activation attributes that are displayed in addition to the attributes defined during the revocation process.

Attribute Description
Revoked By The username of the individual who initiated the revocation process.
Re-credit Quantity The number of licenses re-credited back to the account following the revocation.
Send Notification Indicates whether a notification was sent about the revocation.
Revocation Initiation Date The date and time when the revocation process was initiated.

NOTE   The Creation Date (in the Activations section) indicates when the record was initially created in the database. The Activation Date (in the Activation Attributes section) informs users of the Activation API about when an Entitlement was activated. Ideally, both values are the same.

Actions for Activations

You manage activated licenses using the Activations page, which you access from the navigation pane. The following table lists the actions available for activations:

Action Description
Transactions button Transactions

View transaction details of a selected activation. For more information, see Transactions.

  View Entitlement

For a selected activation, opens the entitlement in the Entitlements page.

  View Downloads

View and associate downloads with the product within the activation using the Downloads page. This action is visible to vendor users with "View" permissions for downloads.

To link a download with a product:

4.In the Actions column, select View Downloads to open the Downloads page.

5.Follow the steps in Creating a Download to create and associate a download with a product in an entitlement.

  View Provisioning Requests View and update the status of provisioning requests using the Provisioning Requests page. For details, see Provisioning Requests.
  Manage Activatees

Manage activatees (the users (individual or customer) that generate a license code for products). For more information, see Managing Activatees.

Viewing and Applying the License File (V2CP)

When you activate an entitlement, the output is a file that can be sent to the customer by email. This file is known as a Vendor-to-Customer Package (V2CP) file.

To view the V2CP file:

1.From the navigation pane, select Activations to view the Activations page.

2.Expand the required activation.

3. Click the Download button Download button. The lservrc.v2cp file is downloaded to your default downloads folder.

4.Open the lservrc.v2cp file with any text editor.

To apply the V2CP file:

1.Locate the lservrc.v2cp file.

2.On the target machine, apply the lservrc.v2cp file using Sentinel Admin Control Center or a utility that you provide to your customers.

Managing Activatees

You manage activatees by clicking the Manage Activatees action button for a selected record on the Activations page. The Manage Activatees action opens the Manage Activatees page displayed below:

The Managing Activatees page can be used to perform the following actions:

>Add and associate activatees

>Mark an activatee as default

>Delete an associated activatee

>Disable an associated activatee

>Enable an activatee that was previously marked as "disabled".

Adding and Associating Activatees

The Add Activatees button on the Manage Activatees page is used for adding and associating an activatee. The page to add and associate an activatee is given below:

The following table explains the activatee attributes:

Attributes Description Required/Optional Valid Values
Email

Email of the activatee (user) who performs the activation.

Required A valid user email.
Password Password the activatee (user) uses to log on to the Sentinel EMS portal. Optional A valid password.
Name Name of the activatee (user). Optional  

Additional Attributes

Ref ID 1 Reference identifier that identifies the activatee in an external system. Optional

>Unique across Sentinel EMS for all activatees

>Alphanumeric

>0 to 100 characters

Ref ID 2 Reference identifier that identifies the activatee in an external system. Optional

>Alphanumeric

>0 to 100 characters

Phone Telephone number of the activatee. Optional

0 to 100 characters

Language

Display language for the activatee.

Select a language from the available languages to specify a language other than English.

Automatically generated emails (for example, entitlement certificate, license certificate) are sent to the activatee in this language.

Also, when the activatee logs on to the Sentinel EMS, the pages displayed are in the selected language.

Required The options displayed depend on the language packs installed for Sentinel EMS.
Company Website URL of the company website Optional A valid URL

Billing and Shipping Address Attributes

Billing Address

Street/PO Box Street address or the post office box details of the activatee for billing statements (for example credit card statements). Optional 0 to 100 characters
City City of the activatee. Optional 0 to 30 characters
State/Province State of the activatee. Optional 0 to 30 characters
Country Country of the activatee. Optional 0 to 30 characters
ZIP Code / Postal Code ZIP or postal code of the activatee. Optional 0 to 20 characters
Use as Shipping Address

>Select Yes to use the same address for both billing and order shipment.

> Select No to expand the pane and specify a different Shipping Address for receiving orders.

 

Yes OR No

Actions for Managing Activatees

The following table lists the actions available for managing activatees:

Action Description
Delete button Delete

Deletes the activatee. You can delete an activatee to remove its association with the activation.

Disable button Disable Disables the activatee.
Enable button Enable Re-enables an activatee that is marked as disabled.