Infoblox Licensing Guidelines

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Guidelines to Assign, Unassign, Download and Install Infoblox Licenses

Using 'My Products' tab in the Support Portal 

Infoblox recommends using Google Chrome for best results to log in to the support portal (https://support.infoblox.com) Click on 'My Products' to open the overview page that contains the list of appliances (Hosts) with Maintenance information, License Strings, Software entitlements (Assigned and Unassigned) and Subscriptions.

Select Account:- If you are a partner (Reseller or Distributor) who is required to manage multiple assets owned by various End Customers, you would have a ‘Select Account’ dropdown to choose & manage your End Customer assets:-

 

Hosts, Software’s, and Subscriptions

The My Products page contains Serial Numbers and Activation ID’s which are classified as Hosts, Assigned Software’s, Unassigned Software’s, and Subscriptions.


 

• Hosts       -       Hosts include the serial number of physical and virtual appliances owned by your organization.
  • Serial numbers of physical appliances are numeric and contain 16 digits.
  • Serial Number of virtual appliances are alphanumeric and contain 32 characters.

 

• Assigned Software       -       Assigned Software displays the Activation ID’s against the Serial Numbers that are assigned to them. Activation ID’s purchased by your organization can contain Perpetual or Subscription licenses, depending on the SKU (product identifier):

 

• SKU’s which contain -SW- generate Perpetual (Permanent) license strings.
• SKU’s which contain -SUB- or -SWTL- generate Subscription licenses (with an end date).

 

• Unassigned Software       -       Unassigned Software displays the Activation ID’s which are available to be assigned. This list includes only the Activation ID’s which generate Permanent licenses (-SW-).

 

• Subscriptions       -       Subscriptions tab displays all the Activation ID’s which are purchased as subscriptions (-SUB- or -SWTL-). This includes license generating items which are meant to be assigned to a Serial Number, along with Cloud based subscriptions which are managed through the Cloud Service Portal (https://csp.infoblox.com).

License Activation

License Activation is a 3-step process that involves:-
 

1. Assigning the Activation ID to the Serial Number (Host).
2. Retrieving/Downloading the license strings/file.
3. Installing the retrieved license strings/file through the CLI or GUI.

  

1.) How to Assign/Unassign Licenses?

Once a purchase is completed, the customer Contact who is listed on the Order will receive a Shipment Notification email, which displays details such as Activation ID’s, SKU, SKU description, Quantity, Start Date, End Date etc. Each type of license installed on the appliance enables a specific feature for the appliance/Grid. To obtain any additional licenses/features, please contact your Infoblox Account team.

 

• Physical appliances are usually purchased along with their licenses on the same Contract. This means that the Activation ID’s are automatically assigned to the serial number, and you can directly Retrieve the license strings/file through the Portal. To retrieve the license strings, please navigate to My Products > Hosts and locate the serial number as shown below:

Click on Manage Software to view the Activation ID’s that are currently assigned to the Host along with Activation ID’s available to be assigned to the Host. Use the option ‘Download License Keys’ to view the license strings or to download the license file.
 

 

• Virtual appliances are created in the customer environment, and Infoblox sells only the Activation ID’s for them. To use the licenses purchased for a VM, the serial number of the VM needs to be created by the customer, as a Host using the option ‘Create Virtual Host’:-

To assign licenses to an existing serial number, please locate the same under Hosts and click Manage.
 

Note:- Customer needs to choose the right technology, while creating the VM serial number as a Host (i.e., DDI or NetMRI).

 

• Grid-Wide Licenses are assigned to the Grid UID** and not to the serial number of a member appliance. To retrieve Grid-Wide licenses, the Grid UID needs to be created as a VM Host using the option: ‘Create Virtual Host’ and the respective Activation ID needs to be assigned to this Host.

** The Grid UID is obtained by running the command “show license_uid” from the Grid Master CLI.

How to Unassign Licenses?

 

Navigate to My Products > Hosts and locate the serial number of the Infoblox appliance from which you are looking to UnAssign licenses. Click on the Arrow at the right side and select Manage Software.
The next page displays the Activation ID’s currently assigned (Red Box) and the Activation ID’s which are available to be assigned (Green Box).
To UnAssign an Activation ID, click on the + icon under QTY TO UNASSIGN.
 

 

2.) How to Retrieve/Download Licenses

The license can be retrieved from the Support portal using multiple ways, depending on how it is going to be installed in the environment.

 

• To retrieve DDI licenses

License features are enabled on DDI appliances (e.g., TE, TR, ND, PT etc.) upon applying the accurate license strings to the appliance.
 

• If you are looking to install DDI license keys through the CLI of any member appliance, copy the license string associated to each feature, and install the same using the set license command.

 

• If you are looking to install DDI license keys through the Infoblox GUI, click on Download to obtain the license strings as a notepad file, in an installable format.

 

• To retrieve NetMRI licenses

NetMRI licenses are installed on the appliance as a license file (with extension .gpg).
Support portal displays the URL for the license file, which is a cumulative result of all the device packs assigned. The same can be copied and pasted to a new browser tab, to obtain the license file:-
 

Note: - Please contact Infoblox Support to generate NetMRI licenses for an OC appliance (Operations Center).
Device packs are not purchased for OC appliances, and the device count of an OC is the sum of all the collector appliances which are a part of it.
 

3.) How to Install Licenses after Assigning through Support Portal?

License keys can be installed through the GUI or through the CLI of the appliance.
Once the licenses are retrieved as per Step 2, please follow the below steps to install them on the appliance:
 

• To install DDI license keys:- 

• Through CLI:

1. From the CLI of the member appliance, issue the set license command.
2. Enter the license key when prompted.
3. Press y to install the license key or press n to discard the license key.

• Through GUI

1. Select the Grid tab  > select the Licenses tab > click the Add icon (plus symbol +).
2. Upload the license file (.txt file) that you downloaded from the Support Portal You can also paste the license (from the notepad file) directly by selecting Paste License(s) option.
3. Click Save License(s).

 

• To install Grid-Wide license keys:-
   

• Through CLI
  
  1. From the Grid Master CLI, issue the set license command.
  2. Enter the license key string.
  3. Press y to install the license key or press n to discard the license key.

 

• Through GUI

1. Select the Grid tab  > select the Licenses tab > Grid-Wide > click the Add icon (plus symbol +).
2. Upload the license file that you generated from the Support site. You can also paste the license (from the notepad file) directly by selecting Paste License(s) option.
3. Click Save License(s)

 

• To install NetMRI licenses

You can install a license file (.gpg format) from CLI or from Web User Interface. However, Infoblox recommends that you install the license file from the CLI.

• To install the license file from the CLI:

 

1. Use SCP or FTP to import the license file into the /Backup directory of NetMRI.
2. From the CLI, issue the license <filename> command, replacing <filename> with the name of the license file.
    

• To install the license file from the Web User Interface:

 

1. Login to GUI with the "admin" account. Only the admin account has privilege to access "License Management".
2. Go to Settings > General Settings > License Management.
3. Go to the License Installation section.
4. Browse, locate, and select the license file.
5. Click OK.

 

Commonly Used CLI Commands for DDI appliances

 

show hwid	Displays the Hardware ID/Serial Number of the Infoblox appliance.
show license	Displays the licenses which are currently running on the appliance.
set license	This command is used to install a license string through the CLI of the appliance. Gridwide license strings are installed through the CLI of the Grid Master, using the same command.
show license gridwide	Displays all the Grid-wide licenses in a Grid when the command is run on CLI of GM.
show license all	Displays all the license features (member specific and Gridwide) running on all the appliances which are a part of the same Grid. This command is run from the CLI of the Grid Master.
show license_uid (show license_pool_container)	Displays the Grid UID (LPC_UID) on which Grid-Wide licenses are assigned. This command is run from the CLI of the Grid Master.

 

If you own a Blox One Subscription, and if you are looking for the associated licenses or access to our Cloud Service Portal, please refer to the below document:- 

Cloud Service Portal - Login & Licensing Help
https://support.infoblox.com/s/article/11060