Self-hosted licence expiry and renewal

To install the licence for the first time, see Install the licence. This page tells you what your self-hosted CodeHerder server does as its licence runs out. It also tells you how to renew.

Alert on the log line

The server writes a fixed WARN line when the licence is close to expiry. Alert on this text:

license: expiring

The line carries licensee, expiry, days_left and threshold. The server writes it at 30, 14, 7 and 1 day(s) before expiry. It writes at most one line per day.

After expiry, the server writes license: expired once per day. When the state changes, it writes license: state changed. Alert on all three lines.

You can also read the days left in three places:

• The Plan & usage card shows “N days left”. It shows a warning when 30 days or fewer remain.
• ch workspace plan prints the days left on the Licence: line.
• GET /v1/workspaces/{id}/plan returns daysLeft, graceEndsAt and expiringSoon in the license block.

The grace window

An expired licence keeps its edition for 30 days. You can change nothing about this window. When it ends, the server drops to the community edition. It does this while it runs. You do not need to restart it.

What stays enforced after the lapse

Control	After the lapse
Sign-in	Stays enforced.
Multi-factor authentication	Stays enforced. Your identity provider enforces it.
Authorisation and workspace roles	Stay enforced.
Audit logging	Stays on.
Instance operator access	Stays. An operator can still reach the operator area and renew.
Closed sign-up	Stays closed, also after a restart.

What stops after the lapse

Feature	After the lapse
SCIM provisioning	Stops. Your identity provider gets an error.
SAML single sign-on	Stops.
New API keys and webhooks	Stop.
Release downloads	Stop.
Licence limits	Stop. Each workspace uses its own plan limits, which are low by default.

Before you rely on it

• Keep one operator who signs in without SAML. That operator can still renew after a lapse.
• Leave CH_PLAN_ENFORCE_HISTORY_RETENTION unset. When it is set, a lapse can prune history older than 7 days.

Renew the licence

1. Get the new licence file from the support contact.
2. Replace the file that CH_LICENSE_FILE points to. If you set CH_LICENSE, replace that value.
3. Restart the server. The server reads the licence at start only.
4. Run ch workspace plan. Confirm the edition is enterprise and the state is active.

A lapsed server returns to the enterprise edition as soon as it starts with the new file.