Understanding Citrix License Files

Most Citrix products require a .lic file to be copied to the Citrix Licensing Server under C:\Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles. License files contain important information about the Citrix products that are licensed such as the edition, number of users, dates the licenses were purchased, dates the licenses were installed, and the Subscription Advantage membership status. Subscription Advantage membership provides upgrade rights to new versions of Citrix products.

Here an example license file from a Citrix XenApp Server:
# This file is in UTF-8 format.
#
SERVER this_host HOSTNAME=CTXSRV01
VENDOR CITRIX
USE_SERVER
INCREMENT MPS_ENT_CCU CITRIX 2010.0121 permanent 25 \
VENDOR_STRING=;LT=Retail;GP=720;CL=ENT,ADV,STD,AST;SA=1;ODP=0 \
DUP_GROUP=V ISSUED=22-Jan-2009 NOTICE="Your Company’s Name”SN=LA-0000000000-00000:123 START=21-jan-2009 SIGN= \
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX \
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX \
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

HOSTNAME=CTXSRV01 This is the hostname of your Citrix license server. It is case sensitive and must match exactly or the license file will not work.

MPS_ENT_CCU This is the product version and edition – in this case MPS stands for MetaFrame Presentation Server (which is now known as XenApp), ENT stands for Enterprise edition, and CCU stands for concurrent user licensing.

2010.0121 This is the date that controls the Subscription Advantage benefits. Since most Citrix products include the first year of subscription, the default is 1 year after the purchase date.

permanent Most Citrix licenses are perpetual, meaning you can us the product indefinitely. These will show permanent here. For evaluation licenses, this field will contain a date (for example: 30-Dec-2009) and the product will stop working after that date.
25 \ This shows the quantity of licenses included in this license file – in this case 25

ISSUED=22-Jan-2009 This is the date the license file was downloaded from www.mycitrix.com.

NOTICE= Your company’s name should appear here.

SN= LA-0000000000-00000 This is the serial number of your licensed product.

START=21-jan-2009 This is the date the product was purchased.

When you renew your Subscription Advantage Membership, you receive an email from Citrix with a license code that begins with the letters RE- (RE-0000000000-00000). Since Citrix licenses are perpetual, you don’t have to apply the renewal license code right away. You can download and apply security patches and hotfixes without a renewal license file.

But – in order to apply feature packs or migrate to a newer version of XenApp, you will need your original code and the renewal code (these can be downloaded together into one .lic file, or you can have several separate .lic files in the MyFiles folder). Also - the license management console will give the Administrator a warning message that the server has invalid subscription until the renewal .lic file is applied.

Want to learn even more about Citrix license files? Check out this article:http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX110847