Just got a subscription license ... WTH?

[tcabernoch]

It is not obvious to me how this subscription license is supposed to work.

I have 4 single-socket servers. Bought a 4pack license.
There's no place to add it to the cluster. I put it on one server, and the rest aren't registered. Can't register them with this license.
I pulled it back off. At least it seemed to remove cleanly.

Anything I search for takes me to the page where you buy licenses. Apparently I'm the only one that can't figure this out,

 

[leesteken]

it not a license (like VMWare) but a support subscription (which is legally an entirely different thing) as the license of Proxmox is AGLP3.
Maybe something went wrong and you should contact the subscription (re)seller or the Proxmox sales office for help.
You buy a support subscription (per used CPU socket) per server. You enter each separate subscription for each server on each server.
Maybe you accidentally bough a 4-socket subscription instead of 4 1-socket subscriptions; please contact the (re)seller to fix this, as the volunteers on this forum cannot do anything to help you.

 

[tcabernoch]

Ya, I get the subtle intricacies of this 'subscription'.
People go on and on about how its not a license on this forum. If they were correct, they wouldn't have to explain how correct they are over and over.
Its still a license, whatever the nerds and lawyers say.

You buy a support subscription (per used CPU socket) per server. You enter each separate subscription for each server on each server.

This is exactly what I needed to know. Thank you.
(You would think they might include this info on the license purchase page ... ?)

 

[tcabernoch]

One more dumb (I think I sound dumb anyway) question. Can you just license like half a cluster? So only license your heavy hitters?

Yes, that's a bad plan. I'm just trying to understand the licensing.

 

[sw-omit]

From the subscription-agreement and FAQ pdf (found on the licensing page):
https://www.proxmox.com/images/download/pve/agreements/Proxmox_VE-Subscription-Agreement_V4.3.pdf

3.7. Subscriptions for a Proxmox VE cluster
In a Proxmox VE cluster all nodes need to have the same subscription level.
Example: Consider having a cluster with three nodes, each node has 1 CPU-socket. You want to get a“Standard Subscription” for your cluster. This means that you need to buy 3 x “Proxmox VE StandardSubscription 1 CPU/year”.

EDIT: That said though, that's (probably) more for the support-tickets part, if you want to use Proxmox's own tickets, they all need the same support-level. If you're fine with figuring things out yourself, with the help of the forum or with a different service-provider, and just want to be on the enterprise-repository so that you are on more stable updates, I BELIEVE nothing is software-wise forcing you to be on the same/any subscription for all nodes, but never tested it, the few clusters I've set up I always entered the subscription-keys before making a / adding to a cluster (And can't talk about the legal limits and stuff of course).

 

[sw-omit]

And also from the FAQ/More info website/page regarding your previous question:
https://shop.proxmox.com/index.php?...y-subscriptions-do-I-need-for-my-servers.html

For example:
If you have 4 x physical servers with 1 socket each, you'll need to order 4 x subscriptions for 1 CPU/year (and not: 1 subscription for 4 CPUs/year).

(which I got to with 2-3 clicks from the pricing-page)



EDIT: Also as a general note: A (healthy) cluster in proxmox needs an odd number of nodes/votes, so 3 or 5, OR what you could do is run a vote-deamon service someplace off-proxmox to add the extra vote so it becomes an odd number.
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager#_corosync_external_vote_support

 

[tcabernoch]

"In a Proxmox VE cluster all nodes need to have the same subscription level."
- Ok. Now, this is the first time I've seen Proxmox licensed, but it didn't seem to complain with only one host licensed on the cluster. What would it do if you left it like that? I guess the point of licensing is to get support, and if you want your cluster to be supported, you license it the way they say to.

https://shop.proxmox.com/index.php?...y-subscriptions-do-I-need-for-my-servers.html
- Thanks. This is what i needed.

 

[sw-omit]

"In a Proxmox VE cluster all nodes need to have the same subscription level."
- Ok. Now, this is the first time I've seen Proxmox licensed, but it didn't seem to complain with only one host licensed on the cluster. What would it do if you left it like that? I guess the point of licensing is to get support, and if you want your cluster to be supported, you license it the way they say to.

https://shop.proxmox.com/index.php?...y-subscriptions-do-I-need-for-my-servers.html
- Thanks. This is what i needed.

Did edit that post a little btw
And glad to help

 

[leesteken]

People go on and on about how its not a license on this forum. If they were correct, they wouldn't have to explain how correct they are over and over.

You can run Proxmox for free with all features because of the copy-left license AGLP3.

Its still a license, whatever the nerds and lawyers say.

You pay for support tickets (zero or more). Are you a lawyer? I guess I'm a nerd and I pay for free software (for a much as I feel I can afford), to keep it free.

 

[csutcliff]

"In a Proxmox VE cluster all nodes need to have the same subscription level."
- Ok. Now, this is the first time I've seen Proxmox licensed, but it didn't seem to complain with only one host licensed on the cluster. What would it do if you left it like that? I guess the point of licensing is to get support, and if you want your cluster to be supported, you license it the way they say to.

https://shop.proxmox.com/index.php?...y-subscriptions-do-I-need-for-my-servers.html
- Thanks. This is what i needed.

It won't complain, but if you ever need to use those support tickets you purchased you would find it invalidated if you are only licensing some of the nodes in the cluster.

Assuming you are OK purchasing support you cannot use the other benefit of it is the enterprise repository which has different package versions compared to the "no-subscription" repo, meaning that the licensed and unlicensed nodes would be running different software versions to each other, that's asking for trouble imo and you'd be better off leaving them all on "no-subscription" and saving your money.

 

[leesteken]

Did you already contact the subscription seller or the Proxmox sales office? People here can speculate all day long but only the seller can fix this and make sure you get your money's worth. But I guess you'll have to wait until business hours (of the seller) to get a response.

 

[tcabernoch]

Thanks folks. We got them from the Proxmox website.
We got Community version by accident, so we want to upgrade to Basic and break it out into 4 individual licenses.
My boss already reached out to Sales. I'm sure they will be happy to accept more money.

 

[esi_y]

You can run Proxmox for free with all features because of the copy-left license AGLP3.

You pay for support tickets (zero or more). Are you a lawyer? I guess I'm a nerd and I pay for free software (for a much as I feel I can afford), to keep it free.

The thing with license vs subscription is not really how it is simplified on the forum, license is the right to use e.g. a product or access content, quite often perpetually (even e.g. e-books would be licensed to you on an e-reader "kind of" forever, i.e. they are NOT irrevocable and they can pull your purchases off your device).

Subscription simply implies (in this context) a recurrent payment (for anything, really). Nowadays, everyone really likes to sell you a subscription, the whole SaaS is a subscription licensing model - so it is perfectly normal that one and the other are used interchangeably.

The license (to use) PVE (the software) is indeed the GPL one. The subscription happens to be for support (not that it would be impossible, but I can't quite imagine profitable business offering a one-off payment for perpetual support), but the Community one is not really payment for any support, it's a mere LICENSE to access the select repo, a recurrent one, hence it is a subscription license. As are effectively all the other subscriptions, since they contain the license to access the repo. Note they could still be considered all licenses even if all they granted was "just" the right to make use of the support, but you would casually just refer to them as "support subscriptions".

Also note how the whole Agreement [1] is phrased: "(Re-)Distributing Software packages received under this Subscription Agreement to a third party or using any of the subscription services for the benefit of a third party is a material breach of the agreement. Even though the open-source license applicable to individual software packages may give you the right to distribute those packages (this limitation is not intended to interfere with your rights under those individual licenses)"

EDIT: Since I expect to end up being taken apart here after the past day, let me support myself [2] ...

license, n. (15c) 1. A permission, usu. revocable, to commit some act that would otherwise be unlawful; esp., an agreement

open-source license. A license that allows open-source software users to copy, distribute, or modify the source code, and publicly distribute derived works based upon the source code. - Open-source licenses usu. do not require royalty or other fees on distribution. The license typically requires a user who redistributes original or modified software that was received under an open-source license to provide the original license terms, including all disclaimers, to all future users, and to distribute the source code with any machine-executable software. It is unclear who has the right or power to enforce the terms of an open-source license. Sometimes termed general public license.

proprietary license. A license that restricts a software user's ability to copy, distribute, or modify the software.

subscription, n. (15c) 3. An oral or a written agreement to contribute a sum of money or property, gratuitously or with consideration, to a specific person or for a specific purpose. Also termed subscription contract.

subscription list. An enumeration of subscribers to an agreement, periodical, or service.

And yes, these things matter [3].

---

[1] https://www.proxmox.com/images/download/pve/agreements/Proxmox_VE-Subscription-Agreement_V4.3.pdf
[2] Black’s Law Dictionary 1002,1564 (9th ed. 2009)
[3] https://www.dlapiper.com/en/insight...rench-court-awards-damages-for-gpl-violations

 

[tcabernoch]

Hehe. I love stirring the pot.
It's a license. Call if what you like. If I have to pay for it, I will call it what I like.

Unfortunately, I lost track of the one we bought. Boss left the company. Now I get to figure this out all over again, on my own. Lovely.

 

[esi_y]

Hehe. I love stirring the pot.
It's a license. Call if what you like. If I have to pay for it, I will call it what I like.

It is legally a license, what I am at loss about is ... how is (insisting on) calling something a subscription giving it a better marketing vibe at all.

Subscription sounds like "you will have to pay me forever or it breaks". It used to be that you bought software and the license to use came with e.g. "1-2 years support included", you kind of knew it made no sense beyond that period anyhow because there would be a new version you would need to move onto. Nowadays the old one becomes unmaintained and full of security holes, so a liability. So either way, you effectively had a subscription - every 1-2 years you were buying it again for new version.

Times have changed, but having (marketing that focuses on the fact that it is) a license (even if it's a subscription license) sounds better than having something vaguely defined (is it a support, or repo access, or both, or only sometimes?) to pay perpetually (explicitly emphasized by the term subscription).

 

[esi_y]

Boss left the company. Now I get to figure this out all over again, on my own. Lovely.

That could be a good thing, sometimes.

 

[tcabernoch]

He was a good dude. Times are rough. Sigh.
And now I have to do all the disk orders, etc. Got stood up in front of client firing squad the other day.
I miss the boss.

 

[tcabernoch]

I managed to track down the license. It was sort of a waste, but I used it to register my account here. I hope that works. I don't want to jump through any more hoops. I'm not good at that stuff.