The DC/OS licensing component allows you to administer your cluster in conformance with your license requirements. DC/OS licensing tracks the state of a cluster license, collects information to check if any licensing terms have been breached, and supports operations for updating the license when a contract is extended or changed.

A cluster license file contains all of the information to determine if the terms of a contract agreement has been breached. It also contains the set of keys necessary to encrypt and decrypt a checksum of the audit data collected by the DC/OS licensing component. The license text contains:

• A private key used by the DC/OS licensing component to sign the audit data checksum.
• A public key used to decrypt the audit data checksum.
• The terms of the license:
  • The maximum number of nodes allowed to be connected at any time.
  • The start and end dates of the license.

Configuring the cluster license

You specify the license file when you configure a cluster installation. To configure a cluster license, create the genconf/license.txtfile and add the license key text you received in the email sent to you by your Authorized Support Contact. For additional information about this step, see the instructions for running the installer.

The DC/OS licensing component will launch successfully only if the information in the license is legitimate. Once the DC/OS licensing component launches, the deployment of the DC/OS components is resumed and validated. If the license is missing or invalid, the deployment will fail.

License audit data

A license contains the maximum number of nodes attached to a cluster at any given time and the start and end date of the license.

Once a day, the DC/OS licensing component logs the number of nodes. The DC/OS licensing component also logs any graceful process shutdown. If the number of nodes exceeds the number specified in the contract, the DC/OS licensing component logs a breach of contract.

To validate that Mesosphere is not logging sensitive data, you can retrieve the audit data decryption key and decrypt the audit data checksum.

Cluster upgrades

For major release upgrades, the license needs to be renewed. A license can be renewed by adding a new license to the config during release upgrades or config upgrades.