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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 is started, it’ll authenticate the key from the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab) and store the license-related data either in the configured database, or, if the container was started without the database configured, in memory.

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 in diagnosing issues and improving the product.

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

When using an online license, the Document Engine container needs to be able to contact the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab).

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 is started, it’ll validate the license key offline and store the license-related data either in the configured database, or, if the container was started without the database configured, in memory.

When using an offline license, Document Engine doesn’t ping the Nutrient Portal(opens in a new tab), nor does it collect any analytics. Any updates to the license must be handled manually, and the Document Engine instance must be restarted. 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. A production license key can be either 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; the same key can be installed 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. There is no offline variant of the development activation key.

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.

If an existing installation previously activated with Nutrient Web SDK (server-backed) activation keys or legacy server-backed/Processor license keys, the stored activated license can also block startup after upgrade. In that case, clear the stored activated license from the database or persistent storage, 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 with an activation key or license key stored as DOCUMENT_ENGINE_ACTIVATION_OR_LICENSE_KEY, use:

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