License Keys

Even though ExaVault is offered in both free and paid versions, all installations of ExaVault will register and regularly update a license key file. This allows the appliance to know whether any paid features have been provisioned to the appliance, and a valid license key file is required for both free and paid usage of ExaVault.

In previous versions of ExaVault, system administrators were required to manually upload and update their license key file using the appliance manager application.

Starting with version 18, this process is fully automated. The ExaVault appliance now makes an outbound request to our server-side API on a regular basis to retrieve and update your license key.

This automation ensures that you will never experience system downtime due to a missing or expired license key after renewal.

If your paid account goes past due, the appliance will now automatically reactivate within an hour after the payment is received.

Firewall Requirements

For the license key update mechanism to function, outbound access on port 443 (HTTPS) must be unrestricted. This is a mandatory requirement for using ExaVault.

ExaVault does not support any deployment scenario where outbound requests to our API are blocked, regardless of free vs. paid status.

IP Address Registration and Restrictions

To prevent abuse of our licensing system, each ExaVault installation must be associated with a single IP address at any given time.

Do not proxy outbound traffic through systems that could generate multiple source IP addresses. If you use a proxy, it must not alter the source IP address of license key requests.

IP Address Changes

We allow legitimate IP address changes and automatically process them. However, to distinguish between real changes and license sharing attempts, only one IP address change per week is allowed. If more than one change occurs in a week, it will be flagged as a potential license violation.

We are not aware of any legitimate need for an appliance to change IP addresses more frequently than once per week. If you believe your setup requires this, please contact our support team.

Cloud Provider Considerations

If you are deploying ExaVault on a cloud provider such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or others, you must configure the appliance with an elastic IP address. This prevents IP changes due to instance resizes, stops, and restarts.