Trial License

This topic provides an overview of how KubeSlice is licensed to users, including the approach for managing and extending the license.

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Installing KubeSlice requires a trial license. Starting from version 1.0.0, all users must have a trial license to install KubeSlice.

Overview

KubeSlice offers licensing with a trial license, to begin with. The trial license is valid for 90 days with a 5-day grace period. The trial license supports only one controller cluster and multiple worker clusters. The worker clusters can be attached to or detached from a slice, but the controller cluster must remain the same for the entire trial period.

After a trial license is installed the trial period begins providing complete access to all features and if needed, you can extend the trial license after its expiration. However, note that expired trial licenses cannot be exchanged for new ones.

Airgap License Activation

The airgap license activation is for clusters in isolated networks such as VPN and private clouds. We support a trial license for cluster in an isolated network.

To activate the trial license on an airgap cluster:

1. Identify a controller cluster to install the KubeSlice trial license.

2. Provide the cluster's Machine Key to the Avesha Support team.

   Machine Key is a combination of the kube-system namespace creationTimestamp and uid with no space or any special character between them.

   For example, if the creationTimestamp is 2022-09-20T19:28:50Z and the uid is 738bf2f7-cbff-42c7-99d1-8d89cfe16d72, then the Machine Key of the cluster is 2022-09-20T19:28:50Z738bf2f7-cbff-42c7-99d1-8d89cfe16d72.

3. Contact Avesha Support at support@avesha.io to get a trial license for a private cluster.

4. The Avesha Support team generates a license secret and shares instructions to install it with you.

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For more information on errors, see licensing events and issues. If you still cannot resolve an error, then contact Avesha Support at support@avesha.io.

Validate the License

On the KubeSlice Manager, you can validate the license installed on KubeSlice.

To validate the license:

1. Expand Settings on the left sidebar.

   

2. Click License from the menu to see the license trial period and key.

   

License Expiry Reminder

During the trial license period, we will notify you about the expiry from the 71st day. On the KubeSlice Manager, a banner notifying users of the expiry is displayed. Every user receives a 5-day grace period following the 90-day trial licensing period. You are, however, notified of the time left until the license expires.

Extend the Trial License

You can extend the same trial license after its expiry if your business requires it.

Extend the License on an Airgap Cluster

To extend the trial license on an airgap cluster:

1. Contact Avesha Support support@aveshasystems.com to extend a trial license for a private cluster.

2. Provide the cluster's Machine Key to the Avesha Support team.

   Machine Key is a combination of the kube-system namespace creationTimestamp and uid with no space or any special character between them.

   For example, if the creationTimestamp is 2022-09-20T19:28:50Z and the uid is 738bf2f7-cbff-42c7-99d1-8d89cfe16d72, then the Machine Key of the cluster is 2022-09-20T19:28:50Z738bf2f7-cbff-42c7-99d1-8d89cfe16d72.

   Alternatively, if you can access KubeSlice Manager, you can also share the License ID.

   To get the License ID from the KubeSlice Manager:

   a. Expand Settings on the left sidebar.

   

   b. Click License from the menu to see the license trial period and key.

   

   c. Copy the License ID to share it with Avesha Support.

   You can also get the License ID using the following command:

   kubectl get secret kubeslice-license-file --template='{{index .data "license-id"}}' -n kubeslice-controller | base64 -d

   Expected Output

   f6461a9d-09e9-4db8-a75f-bff8b4e6162b

3. The Avesha Support team generates a license secret and shares instructions to install it with you.

Extend the License Online

Use the KubeSlice Manager to extend the license online. To extend the License ID:

1. On the left sidebar of the KubeSlice Manager, locate the Extend License label at the bottom left of the page.

2. Click the Extend License label.

   

3. On the license dialog, click Extend Trial License.

4. The button is integrated with a mail client that creates an email with all the required details such as License ID addressed to Avesha Support prefilled. Send the email to Avesha Support.

5. The Avesha Support team generates a license secret and shares instructions to install it with you.

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   You can also get the License ID using the following command:

   kubectl get secret kubeslice-license-file --template='{{index .data "license-id"}}' -n kubeslice-controller | base64 -d

   Expected Output

   f6461a9d-09e9-4db8-a75f-bff8b4e6162b