Appendix - Semaphore Licence Expiry

Often we are asked what happens when Semaphore licenses expire and how this will effect anyone using the Semaphore software. Here we discuss what licenses are and what expiry means to the actual use of Semaphore.

What are license keys?

These are encrypted text keys that are used to determine whether or not you are authorized to use the Semaphore software. These keys generally have “expiry dates” after which the key is no longer valid.

Where can I get my Semaphore license keys?

Generally, your organization will have been emailed the license keys for your product when it was first purchased and they are also available from the Semaphore Customer Portal in sofware downloads section. The keys are distributed as text files that you download then install as appropriate (see below for details).

What Semaphore licenses exist?

Without these keys, the product will not function (see “What happens after my licenses expire?” later in this article for details). For Semaphore 5 licence keys are issued for each of your licensed “environments”. The name of each environment license key distribution file contains the date on which the key will expiry. For example “Production-Env-Licence-2022-05-07.txt” indicates this is the license for the “Production” environment and it expires on May 7th, 2022 (the format is “year-month-day”).

When will my Semaphore license expire?

Generally, Semaphore licenses are issued with expiry dates that coincide with the renewal date for your support contract with Progress though this is something that can be specified differently in individual contract details (please review your Progress contract for your exact details). There is always an element of lee-way here so in reality, this is a few days after the actual expiry of your support contract.

You can always check the contents of your environment license key which has the “Contract Expiry” date inside of it, as you can see from a sample licence extract below:

;Smartlogic Ltd Semaphore licence file version 1.2

BdB61xMXBQDVXDTWNYV]ZNF\JMF[JJFZJN`^DRJKD...

[General]
Client=Smartlogic
Environment=Production
Environment Type=Semaphore On-Premise
Package=Enterprise
Contract Expiry Date=January 10, 2021
...

Will I be notified before my licenses expire?

Your primary commercial contact for Progress will be notified by our accounts department 1-2 months prior to your licenses expiring. If you are not sure who this might be please review the information at Account Profile (when logged into the Semaphore Customer Portal) or Contact Progress.

What happens when new licenses are issued?

When new Semaphore licenses are issued your primary commercial contact will be sent a copy of the new licenses and they will be made available for download from the Semaphore Customer Portal. It is important that these licenses are installed as soon as you receive them to avoid any loss of functionality (see the next section for details on what that means). Detailed instructions on how to install new license keys can be found in licences.

What happens when my licenses expire?

So, you have not received the email about renewing your support agreement, the license key has not been installed, or whatever…what happens when the keys expire? The Semaphore components will begin to show errors when you attempt to access them. For example, any request to Knowledge Model Management or Classification Server will return a license expiry message. For any applications (for example, SharePoint) that use this information, this will commonly be exposed by no terms being returned when documents are classified or model information will not be displayed. The logs for “Knowledge Model Management” and “Classification Server” will include messages regarding the fact that your license key has expired so regular monitoring of these logs will show this happening.