Licensing Questions

1) If I purchase a license for X domains, how do I "use" it? Do I just go into Virtualmin and "type it in"?

You can upgrade an installation to Virtualmin Pro by going into System Settings -> Upgrade to Virtualmin Pro.

2) And what if I buy a 10-domain license, but there are 20 domains on the Machine... does it pick 10, or just not work at all, or give me an error msg?

Well, the entire installation is running Virtualmin Pro. It's not just something that certain domains have access to. There's a number of features available in the installation that otherwise aren't available in Virtualmin GPL.

So if you have 20 domains, you'd need to purchase a Virtualmin 50 license.

3) What if I decide I want to move that license from a Test Machine A to a Production Machine B... am I able to remove it from A and type it into B... or does that violate something?

If you want, you can keep a copy on the test system. The license allows for having a copy on a backup (or test) server.

You're welcome to move the license around though, it's not tied to a specific IP. The license manager just keeps track of how many installations there are containing that particular license.

If you want to convert an installation to Virtualmin GPL, you can do so using the instructions here in the section "Downgrading Virtualmin Professional to GPL":

https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/installation/uninstalling

4) Or, what if I accidentally type the license into Machine B before removing it from Machine A, will either Machine A or B go "down" in that scenario?

We're not fans of things just breaking :-)

Stuff can happen by accident, and we certainly wouldn't want things just shutting down if it were our own servers. So there's no feature in Virtualmin that causes any sort of shutdown.

If we ever felt a license wasn't being used properly, we would attempt to contact the license owner.

Usually, it's just a simple accident, and the issue is resolved right then and there.

If there were still a problem though, and the license owner weren't willing to figure things out with us (which is very rare) -- we might invalidate the license and block the IP address from getting further updates. Which wouldn't break the current installation, but would prevent further domains from being added through Virtualmin, and prevent access to new Virtualmin releases.

1) Yes, you enter it in Virtualmin's configuration, there's an "Upgrade to Pro" function under System Settings. It will then download the necessary packages and update itself to Pro.

2) My assumption is that it will display a warning message, but not stop working.

3) You enter the code on machine B, do migrations if applicable, and then remove it from A. No problems there.

4) Worst case, you get a warning message, but it won't stop working. You can officially use the license on two machines at the same time, as long as only one is serving "live content" and the other for migration or experiments or such. Whatever you do, it'll never stop working or cripple your system. At worst you get a big warning on the dashboard screen (and the Virtualmin guys get a notice about you "violating" the license). :)

@Eric, about 2):

I suppose Jim was wondering if, when he upgrades a GPL with 20 domains on it, using a 10-domain license, what will happen. Like, will the license be rejected, or will 10 "random" domains stop working. :)

My assumption is, as I said, that it will refuse to create more domains, but continue to operate with the 20 existing ones, but show a warning message about exceeding the license?

I suppose Jim was wondering if, when he upgrades a GPL with 20 domains on it, using a 10-domain license, what will happen. Like, will the license be rejected, or will 10 "random" domains stop working.

Agreed, I think that's what he meant too; however, since using 50 domains on a Virtualmin 10 is against our wishes, I didn't go into specifics there... we'd prefer he buy a Virtualmin 50, or reduce domains to 10 :-)