[8.940][MYTH] Restored backup -> license expired

Hi,

I installed a new instance of 8.940016 using the ISO, during setup I restored a saved backup. After the restore and logging on again to WebAdmin I was presented with a screen informing me that I needed to upload my license since the license was expired.

I didn't have internet access anymore because ASG stopped working due to this expired license (I had stored my license file in my e-mail which I have to access remotely). So I was effectively locked out.

Why isn't the license included in the configuration backup or is it possible to have an evaluation license after doing a restore so that you still have internet access to retrieve the license file from for example MyAstaro?

Franc.

0 kbr over 13 years ago
Franc,

the license is included in the backup. I know exactly two situations where a license expires after you restore a backup:

If you hadn't installed any license
If something is wrong with the clock of the system and the UTM detects a jump of more than the few seconds that NTP can handle (search for "ntp clock skew" on Google).

Can you please check the logs for messages that look like "timewarp detected"?

Cheers,
Kai
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0 FrancWest over 13 years ago in reply to kbr

Hi Kai,

Most probably your last point is what happened: I originally had installed ESXi 5 on the system and UTM was running as a VM, so the bios clock was set to UTC time. Then I installed Win 8 server Hyper-V, Hyper-V uses local time instead of UTC time, so there was a 2 hour time jump in my case.

But how does UTM check the time, since it doesn't have an internet connection yet so it can't use NTP.

Franc.
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0 kbr over 13 years ago in reply to FrancWest

... how does UTM check the time, since it doesn't have an internet connection yet so it can't use NTP

Getting the system date and time is a function that is implemented in the operating system. These functions check the system time, which is the time that is stored in the BIOS clock. NTP is used to set that clock, there's no separate check against a remote time service.

Cheers,
Kai

PS: Microsofts use of localtime is a leftover from DOS days which they decided to not fix because of dual-boot capabilities in the early days of Windows NT. Raymond Chen wrote a nice blog article about this.
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0 FrancWest over 13 years ago in reply to kbr

Ok, but how does UTM check then if a time lapse occured? I mean, I created the VM, installed UTM, during setup I cleared the 'bios uses UTC' time checkbox, corrected the time minus 2 hours. After installation the time was correct, I restored the backup and then it complains that the license expired.

Franc.
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0 kbr over 13 years ago

Well, in the cases i saw it was always that moment where the NTP daemon successfully contacted some servers on the Internet, which is either the moment where you activate the interface or plug the upstream cable (virtually or not) into the wall.
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0 FrancWest over 13 years ago

Ok, but that wasn't the case in my situation. Hence my question. I was setting up UTM so the external interface wasn't configured yet. I uploaded the backup during the setup phase, that was one of the first things it asked after the initial setup.
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0 kbr over 13 years ago

But the backup contains an already configured and activated interface... right? ;-)
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0 FrancWest over 13 years ago

Uhh, right :-) Although it's different virtual hardware it's probably still functional. Sorry!
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[8.940][MYTH] Restored backup -> license expired

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