How licensing behaves in practice, including on networks that cannot reach us at all. The binding terms, including the 30-day grace period, are in clause 8 of each product’s licence agreement; this page describes how they play out in practice.
The same licensing structure applies to every Skyrsoft product. Where a detail differs between products, it is called out below.
Free and Pro
Every product has a Free edition that is permanent and a Pro subscription. Free is not a trial: it does not expire, and you can run and inspect it indefinitely. What each edition includes, and the limits that apply, are on the pricing page.
What validation sends
A Pro installation periodically checks its licence against our licensing service. Each periodic check carries identifiers only: a product, licence and site identifier, the installation’s own instance identifier, an activation identifier and a single-use nonce. When the installation activates a licence, it also sends the licence key itself (which carries the licensee name and email address it was issued to), plus the installation’s hostname, operating system and application version. CertOps activates when a licence key is applied; Autologon Manager also re-activates each time its service starts after a normal shutdown. As with any network request, it also discloses the sending server’s IP address to our licensing service.
The exact list for a given product is stated in its own licence agreement, clause 9(b), and the Privacy Policy sets out what we do with it.
It does not send the material the product manages — no certificates, no private keys, no credentials, no configuration of the systems you manage. It does not send your managed-unit counts, diagnostic logs or error information.
Activation needs one connection
A Pro licence takes effect once the installation has activated it. When you apply the licence
key, the server makes one successful request to our licensing service, and Pro capability starts
from that moment. Until that request succeeds, the installation runs as the Free edition, and it
retries by itself while it cannot reach our licensing service. Activation is outbound only; nothing inbound is required. The request
goes to licensegate.skyrsoft.app over HTTPS (TCP 443), the same host the periodic checks use. Allow
that host through any firewall between the server and the internet.
For an isolated deployment this is the first of the two moments that connectivity matters: apply the key while the server can still reach us, before it goes behind the air gap.
Once activated, being offline does not revoke your licence
This is the important part if your deployment is isolated. Once a licence has activated, if the product cannot reach our licensing service, nothing is suspended, reduced or revoked. The installation keeps running under its current edition and limits for the remainder of its licensed term.
That is a deliberate design decision, not an oversight: once activated, air-gapped and network-restricted deployments are expected to work without reaching us. We are not willing to ship a licence check that could degrade a production PKI because an outbound connection was blocked.
What happens at expiry
Three states, in order:
| Period | State | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Up to the expiry date | Valid | Full Pro capability |
| Expiry to expiry + 30 days | Grace period | Full Pro capability, with a warning shown in the console |
| After expiry + 30 days | Expired | Capability reverts to the Free edition |
Reverting is not termination and not deletion. The product keeps running, your data stays where it is, and you are not required to uninstall anything — it simply behaves as the Free edition until a valid subscription is validated again. Renewing at any point restores Pro capability.
Renewal needs one successful validation
Renewing your subscription extends your term in our billing system, but the extended term reaches your installation only when the product successfully validates against our licensing service.
For an internet-connected server this happens on its own, and you will not notice it. For an isolated deployment it is the second moment that connectivity matters, after activation: until that validation succeeds, the installation continues on its existing term, and if that term and its 30-day grace period run out first, it reverts to Free until validation next succeeds.
There is no offline reactivation mechanism. An installation that can never reach our licensing service cannot have a renewal applied to it, and will run at Free edition capability once its term and grace period have ended. An installation that has never reached us cannot activate at all, so it runs as the Free edition from the start. If your deployment is permanently isolated, settle this before you subscribe, and talk to us first.
Planning for an isolated deployment
- Allow the licensing check outbound if you can. It is a small, infrequent request and it carries none of your managed material.
- If you cannot, activate first: apply the licence key while the server can reach us, then isolate it. From there you have the full term plus 30 days of runway before capability changes, and what changes is the edition: the product keeps running.
- A deployment that can never reach us can run the Free edition indefinitely, but cannot activate Pro at all. Weigh that before you subscribe.
- Put your renewal date in the same calendar as your certificate expiries. Activation and the renewal validation are the two things a fully isolated deployment cannot do for itself.
Limits
- There is no offline activation or reactivation mechanism. A licence activates, and a renewal reaches an installation, only through a successful call to our licensing service. Nothing substitutes for that call.
- Validation is outbound only. Nothing inbound is required, but the request has to complete once to activate and at least once per renewal for the extended term to arrive.
- The grace period is 30 days and it is not extendable. After the term and that grace period have both elapsed without a successful validation, capability is the Free edition’s.
- The Free edition’s limits apply once Pro capability lapses. They are listed on the pricing page.