Activation

You must activate your installation of DashO with a license key in order to use it. When you purchase one or more licenses for DashO, PreEmptive will send you a license key for each license. Similarly, when you download an evaluation of DashO, PreEmptive will send you a key for an evaluation license. Different types of licenses allow you to use the software in different ways, and it is important that you activate DashO with the correct license key.

If you activate via the Config Editor, then you'll enter the appropriate license key during that process. The activation process will provision and automatically save a license token for future runs of DashO on that machine so you do not need to activate again.

Please see Troubleshooting if you encounter any errors during this process. For more information on licensing, contact PreEmptive Solutions.

Types of Licenses

DashO Licenses may be Build Licenses or User Licenses. Additionally, a given license may or may not be a Floating License.

Build Licenses and User Licenses

Build Licenses are intended to be used on build agents in order to build production-ready software. When you use a Build License to run DashO you may publicly distribute the resulting software.

User Licenses are primarily intended to be used by developers working on development machines, e.g., to integrate DashO into their build process or edit their DashO configuration with the Config Editor. In addition, all DashO evaluation licenses are User Licenses. When you use a User License to run DashO, you may not publicly distribute the resulting software. If you activate DashO with a User License using an argument or an environment variable, you will also need to include your email address to form a complete license string.

Note: Be sure to maintain proper control of your licensing keys and tokens.

Floating Licenses

A Floating License is a license that may be activated on any number of machines, allowing them to be used on as many build agents as your team uses up to your license's limit for concurrent builds. This allows you to use DashO on build agents that are dynamically provisioned as part of an automated build system. PreEmptive will configure Build Licenses to be Floating by default.

When using a Floating License, every run of DashO will verify the subscription against PreEmptive's servers, so an active Internet connection is required to run DashO.

Non-Floating Licenses can only be activated on a limited number of machines, but once activated DashO will not require successful verification with PreEmptive's Servers during every run. You can use Non-Floating Licenses on machines without an active internet connection.

How to Activate

If you run the DashO Config Editor and have not yet activated (or you choose Help -> Change Product License... in the menu), the Activation Tool will launch. Follow the prompts to use your web browser to activate DashO.

Activating via the Config Editor will provision and automatically save a license token for future runs of DashO on that machine, so you do not have to activate again. Please see Troubleshooting if you encounter any errors during this process.

Note: You can change your license at any time by navigating to the "Help" menu and selecting "Change Product License".

With a Java Property or an Environment Variable

You can set a Java property or environment variable DASHO_LICENSE to contain a license key (formatted as a license string). When this is set, each run of DashO will activate itself using the license key stored in the property or variable. The Java property has precedence over the environment variable.

This is useful when activating DashO on dynamically provisioned build agents, as the variable can be set through the build system automatically. When activating on a dynamically provisioned build agent, the license in question must be a Floating License.

DashO will not save your license key after reading it from the environment variable. If you later unset the variable, you will need to activate DashO one of the other ways.

With an Argument

You can explicitly pass a license key (formatted as a license string) to DashO's various build interfaces. This includes:

• DashO Command Line
• DashO GUI Command Line
• PreMark Command Line

DashO will not save your license key after reading it from the command line. If you later stop passing the argument, you will need to activate DashO one of the other ways.

Precedence

When DashO runs, it obtains the license key and registration information as follows:

1. If the --license argument is used, that value will be used to to activate DashO for this run only.

2. Otherwise, if the DASHO_LICENSE Java property is set, that property's value is used to activate DashO for this run only.

3. Otherwise, if the DASHO_LICENSE environment variable is set, that variable's value is used to activate DashO for this run only.

4. Otherwise, if DashO was previously activated on this machine via the Config Editor, that registration information is used.

5. Otherwise, if the Config Editor is being run, you will be prompted for your license key. The key will be used to activate DashO for this machine, saving registration information for future runs.

6. Otherwise, DashO will error.

Activation Tool

The DashO Activation Tool is a graphical user interface that allows you to activate DashO if not passing your license information through a java property, an environment variable or with an argument.

If you have not yet activated, the Activation Tool is automatically launched when you start the Config Editor.

The Activation Tool opens your web browser to preemptive.com, on a page generated specifically for your activation process. Follow the prompts on that page to connect your installation with your preemptive.com account and license.

On systems which do not support the automatic browser communication, you will be presented with a dialog allowing you to manually enter the information.

After you complete the activation process on preemptive.com, your web browser will either:

• Communicate back to the Activation Tool via a localhost HTTP request.
• Provide you with a token to enter manually.

The Activation Tool will then verify the activation.

If activation is successfully verified, the tool will show the following message:

A successful activation will be saved on the machine, allowing DashO to run without needing to activate again.

Note: For help diagnosing activation issues, see Troubleshooting.

Internet Connection Requirement

Activating requires an Internet connection in order to verify the license key with PreEmptive's servers. Floating Licenses also require an active Internet connection when running DashO.

To avoid build failures due to intermittent network issues, DashO will retry failed connections after a short waiting period. If a connection cannot be made after a retry, the build will fail with an error message describing the network issue.

If the license server response indicates that it is undergoing planned maintenance, DashO will retry the connection every 30 seconds for up to 30 minutes, by default. The delay between connection attempts and the timeout value are configurable using the following environment variables:

• The DASHO_MAINTENANCE_RETRY_DELAY variable sets the delay (in seconds) between connection attempts.

• The DASHO_MAINTENANCE_RETRY_TIMEOUT variable sets the duration of the retry period (in minutes) before connection failure.

Both values must be provided as positive integers.

Renewing Subscriptions

After activation, DashO will download your registration information from PreEmptive's servers. If you have a subscription and it has expired, you will be prompted to renew.

The DashO Config Editor will run in reduced functionality mode if your subscription has expired and you have not renewed it. The Config Editor's status bar will alert you if your subscription needs attention, and give you a link to the appropriate resource. Once you have updated your subscription, re-launch the DashO Config Editor and it will download the updated information from PreEmptive's servers and once again operate in full functionality mode.

License Strings

Several ways of activating DashO require you to supply a "license string".

• If you have a Build License, your license string is just your license key.
• If you have a User License, your license string is your license key and your email address separated by a colon (e.g. 00000000000000000000000000000000:jdoe@mycompany.com).