FAQs
What are the requirements for the CSD licensing system (from 2020)?
Solution
There are two main methods by which you may licence the 2020 and later CSD software:
Activation
The standard system for licensing is activation. You will need the activation key that we have sent to you - this can be used to activate either for an individual user, or to set up activation for all users of a particular system if you have root or administrator rights. This can be performed either with the CSD Portfolio installer, or later with the ccdc_activator tool. More details on how this is done can be found in the CSD Portfolio Release and Installation notes. Activation requires an active internet connection.
It is important to note that activation is per-system and per-user. If you have set up the system to activate for all users, then this actually performs a silent auto-activation for each user when they first start a CCDC application.
Local Licence Server
If you have an unlimited site licence, then you may also request a local licence server from us as an alternative to activation. We will provide you with a licence server installer, which is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS, and a new activation key just for that licence server. You will need to install the licence server on a physical machine, and activate it with the supplied activation key. Thereafter, any CCDC software installs may be configured to use this licence server, using the hostname or IP address and port you have specified when installing it, instead of performing activation. A big advantage of this method is that no external internet access is required by the CCDC software using the licence server.
Configuration to use the licence server works similarly to performing activation - you can configure this for an individual user or system-wide at install time, or later with the ccdc_activator tool. Instructions for this are also present in the CSD Portfolio Release and Installation Notes. This setup is at most per-system - if installing and using on multiple machines, you will need to configure each system with ccdc_activator so it knows where the licence server is located.