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Product activation

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Document Engine is a commercial product and requires a license to work. We provide one activation key for one production installation, and one development activation key for all development installations. Contact our Sales team if you have any questions related to your license.

License types

Document Engine offers two types of licenses: online and offline.

Online license

Online licenses use an activation key to register the license with the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab). The first time the Document Engine container starts, Document Engine authenticates the key with the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab). It then stores the license data in the configured database, or in memory if the container starts without one.

Document Engine pings the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab) every two hours to verify its license and download updated license information. It also sends anonymous usage analytics to the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab). These analytics help us diagnose issues and improve the product.

Document Engine activation keys are expected to start with the 3- prefix.

When you use an online license, the Document Engine container must be able to contact the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab). For firewall configuration, refer to adding Document Engine firewall rules.

Offline license

Offline licenses use a license key that works without connecting to the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab). Each time the Document Engine container starts, Document Engine validates the license key offline. It then stores the license data in the configured database, or in memory if the container starts without one.

When you use an offline license, Document Engine doesn’t ping the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab), nor does it collect any analytics. You must handle license updates manually and restart the Document Engine instance. Contact our Support team(opens in a new tab) for assistance.

Production and development keys

Customers receive two kinds of keys from the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab):

  • A production license key for production deployments. It can be an online activation key (short, prefixed with 3-) or an offline license key (long string). Production license keys aren’t bound to a single instance. You can install the same key on multiple Document Engine instances, including parallel test and production deployments.
  • A development activation key for non-production environments. Development activation keys are short and prefixed with 3-. They always validate online with the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab), regardless of whether the license is configured as online or offline. The development activation key has no offline variant.

To run Document Engine on an air-gapped instance, including a test environment with no outbound connectivity, use an offline production license key. The built-in dashboard’s document viewer requires outbound network access in addition to the license. Refer to network requirements in the dashboard guide for what to expect and the supported alternative.

Configuring the license

As of version 1.2.0, Document Engine supports both license types using either the ACTIVATION_KEY or LICENSE_KEY environment variable. You can use either variable name to provide your license credentials, regardless of the license type.

As of Document Engine 1.16.0, Nutrient Web SDK (server-backed) activation keys and legacy server-backed/Processor license keys are no longer supported, including legacy offline license keys. Document Engine now requires a Document Engine activation key or offline license key.

Document Engine activation keys are expected to start with the 3- prefix.

A stored activated license from an earlier Nutrient Web SDK (server-backed) activation key or legacy server-backed/Processor license key can also block startup after an upgrade. In that case, clear the stored activated license from the database or persistent storage. Then configure a valid Document Engine activation key or offline license key, and start Document Engine again.

Setting Helm values

For deployment with Helm, use the values in the documentEngineLicense section:

documentEngineLicense:
  activationKey: "<your activation or license key>"

You can also use LICENSE_KEY instead of ACTIVATION_KEY.

We recommend using external secrets for the license. For example, for a secret resource named document-engine-license that stores the key as DOCUMENT_ENGINE_ACTIVATION_OR_LICENSE_KEY, use:

documentEngineLicense:
  externalSecret:
    name: document-engine-license
    key: DOCUMENT_ENGINE_ACTIVATION_OR_LICENSE_KEY