Alpaca 10.6

Alpaca Licensing

Alpaca is licensed in one of three ways: Perpetual, Term, or Subscription. A license is required for Alpaca to operate. Your Alpaca license includes all the various modules that have been purchased by your company as well as Host ID mappings to your BroadWorks Application Servers. As of Alpaca 10.6.0, the ECG license is stored in the Alpaca database instead of on the file system of the Alpaca server. This means when it is time to update your license, you only have to do it in one place instead of on each Alpaca instance in the HA cluster.

Perpetual

A Perpetual license is a permanent license without an expiration date. The only time this license needs to be updated is if there is a change to your purchased modules or if you are adding/modify valid host ids.

Term

A Term license is a temporary license with an expiration date. Usually these licenses are valid for 90 days or less and are typically used for trials. Once a term license expires, Alpaca will no longer operate until another license is applied.

Subscription

A Subscription license is a temporary license that expires after 30 days. Unlike a Term license, a Subscription license will be automatically updated by Alpaca as long as the customer has an active contract. This is accomplished by Alpaca reaching out to the ECG License Manager periodically to check the status of the license. If the license is about to expire, a new one will be generated and will replace the old one.

Alpaca authenticates to the License Manager using a generated API token and the IP address of the Alpaca server. The API token can be generated at the ECG Portal under the "Your License API Keys" section. You will need to provide the IP address of the Alpaca server that will be using the token. If the token is used anywhere except from the configured IP, the request will be denied.

Reloading License

By default, Alpaca reaches out to the ECG Licensing service every day at 1:00 AM local time to check and download an updated license if needed. If your support contract with ECG lapses, your ECG license will no longer update.

In the event that your support contract lapses and then is brought back to current, your Alpaca license may still be invalid until the next day. To force Alpaca to renew/reload the updated license, you have two options.

Note that when using a Subscription based license, reloading will also attempt to renew the license.

Web Interface

This method requires Alpaca 10.3.0+.

  1. As an Alpaca Admin, navigate to Admin > Alpaca License Details
  2. Click the Reload License button in the top right corner of the panel.
  3. You Alpaca license should now be updated.

Programmatically

Using cUrl, Postman, or any similar tool, you can hit the reload-license REST endpoint.

  • Endpoint: https://<ALPACA_USERNAME>:<ALPACA_PASSWORD>@<ALPACA_URL>/api/v1/ecg-license/reload-license
    • <ALPACA_USERNAME>: The username used to log in to Alpaca. Must be a user with the Alpaca Admin role.
    • <ALPACA_PASSWORD>: The matching password for the provided user.
    • <ALPACA_URL>: The url for Alpaca. Must include port if not on port 443.
  • Notes:
  • Example:
    • <ALPACA_USERNAME>: alpaca_admin
    • <ALPACA_PASSWORD>: password123!
    • <ALPACA_URL>: alpaca.acme.org:8443
    • https://alpaca_admin:password123%21@alpaca.acme.org:8443/api/v1/ecg-license/reload-license
  • Results:
    • 200: License was successfully updated
    • 401: Invalid credentials
    • 403: Correct credentials, but the user is not an Alpaca Admin
    • Other: Contact ECG for further support

Uploading a License

When using a TERM license or upgrading a PERPETUAL license, the new license can be uploaded at Admin > Alpaca License Details > Upload. This method is also used for installing the original Alpaca license after a new installation of Alpaca.

Upgrading from pre-10.6.0 to 10.6.0

If a valid license is found on the file system, that license will automatically be converted and pushed to the database on the first boot. If a valid license is not found, one will be to be uploaded at Admin > Alpaca License Details.

See the Configuration Guide for further configuration.