License Management

Most package types (Professional, Basic, and Evaluation) require a license file in order to run.

If your Connext DDS distribution requires a license file, you will receive one from RTI via email.

If you have more than one license file from RTI, you can concatenate them into one file.

A single license file can be used to run on any architecture and is not node-locked. You are not required to run a license server.

Installing the License File

Save the license file in any location of your choice; the locations checked by the middleware are listed below.

You can also specify the location of your license file in RTI Launcher's Configuration tab. Then Launcher can copy the license file to the installation directory or to the user workspace.

Each time your Connext DDS application starts, it will look for the license file in the following locations until it finds a valid license:

1. In the PropertyQosPolicy of the DomainParticipant, there may be a property called dds.license.license_string. The value for this property can be set to the content of a license file. (This may be necessary if a file system is not supported on your platform.) You can set the property either in source code or in an XML file. An XML file example is shown below:

<participant_qos>
    <property>
        <value>
            <element>
                <name>dds.license.license_string</name>
                <value>contents of license file</value>
            </element>
        </value>
    </property>
</participant_qos>

If the content of the license file is in XML, special characters for XML need to be escaped in the license string.1Special characters include: quotation marks ("), apostrophes ('), greater-than (>) and less-than (<) signs, and ampersands (&).

2. In the PropertyQosPolicy of the DomainParticipant, there may be a property called dds.license.license_file. The value for this property can be set to the location (full path and filename) of a license file. (This may be necessary if a default license location is not feasible and environment variables are not supported.) You can set the property either in source code or in an XML file.

Example XML to set dds.license.license_file:

<participant_qos>
    <property>
        <value>
            <element>
                <name>dds.license.license_file</name>
                <value>path to license file</value>
            </element>
        </value>
    </property>
</participant_qos>

3. In the location specified in the environment variable RTI_LICENSE_FILE, which you may set to point to the full path of the license file, including the filename.

Note: When you run any of the scripts in the <NDDSHOME>/bin directory, this automatically sets the RTI_LICENSE_FILE environment variable (if it isn't already set) prior to calling the executable. It looks for the license file in two places: your rti_workspace directory and the installation directory (NDDSHOME). (See Paths Mentioned in Documentation.)

4. In your rti_workspace/5.2.0directory, in a file called rti_license.dat.
5. In your rti_workspace directory, in a file called rti_license.dat.
6. In <NDDSHOME> (the Connext DDS installation directory), in a file called rti_license.dat. (See Building and Running “Hello, World” for details on NDDSHOME.)

As Connext DDS attempts to locate and read your license file, you may (depending on the terms of the license) see a printed message with details about your license.

If the license file cannot be found or the license has expired, your application may be unable to initialize Connext DDS, depending on the terms of the license. If that is the case, your application’s call to DomainParticipantFactory.create_participant() will return null, preventing communication.

If you have any problems with your license file, please email support@rti.com.

Adding or Removing License Management

If you are using a package type that requires a license file and your license file changes—for example, you receive a new license for a longer term than your original license—you do not need to reinstall Connext DDS.

However, if you switch from a license-managed distribution of Connext DDS to one of the same version that does not require license management, or visa versa, RTI recommends that you first uninstall your original distribution before installing your new distribution. Doing so will prevent you from inadvertently using a mixture of libraries from multiple installations.

© 2015 RTI