Offline deactivation

Hi,

We are currently implementing LimeLM in our products, and want to give the user the full range of options to activate/deactivate both online and offline. However I am a bit worried about the disconnect from the server when deactivating offline. For example is there any way to prevent the following scenario?

1. Customer runs "deactivate offline" function, product key is no longer activated.2. Customer immediately runs "activate online" function with same key, product key is now activated again.3. Customer sends us the offline deactivation request file, we process it, our dashboard now shows the key as deactivated.4. Customer can now install the product on another machine and use online activation to get a second activation, at least until the IsGenuineEx() check kicks in, which could be some time (we haven't actually decided how often or if at all we will use this yet).

Presumably you could embed the date of creation into the offline deactivation request and check this against the activity log for the key, but this doesn't appear to be happening at the moment.Regards,Robin

4. Customer can now install the product on another machine and use online activation to get a second activation, at least until the IsGenuineEx() check kicks in, which could be some time (we haven't actually decided how often or if at all we will use this yet).

Correct.

We will be implementing the ability to warn you from allowing customers that have deactivated offline from then activating again until X days have been passed. In the meantime, the way to prevent this is to use an IsGenuineEx() with a days between checks of somewhere between 30 days and 90 days.

Ok thanks, looking forward to the update.

The problem with IsGenuineEx for us is that we tend to licence our products for very short time periods, often between 10 and 30 days, and we know our customers may often be offline during this time.

I think another possibility will be for us to check the activity log (I have another query about that but will start a new thread).

Regards,Robin

There is a similar problem if the product has been activated offline, as follows:1. Customer runs offline deactivation2. Customer sends us the request file3. Customer immediately runs the offline activation file again and is now reactivated

This could be mostly mitigated by reducing the response XML expiry time to only a day. This seems to be possible in the dashboard but not in the API. Would it be possible to add the expiry date to both limelm.pkey.manualActivation and .pkey.manualDeactivation?

Regards,Robin

Bump ...

>1. Customer runs offline deactivation>2. Customer sends us the request file>3. Customer immediately runs the offline activation file again and is now reactivated

We are about to roll out LimeLM to our customers but are still rather worried about this scenario. This means we really need to be able to change the response file expiry time from the default of two weeks, we would rather have only a day on this.We have integrated LimeLM into our own customer management system using the web API, so we really need this parameter added.An alternative might be to be able to change this default value globally in the dashboard since we want the same value to be used for all our keys on all products.

Regards,Robin

Hi, I have the same concern about the offline activation and will limit the deactivation number up to 2 times within a year. The small number of deactivation number limit would make users not deactivate easily. It could be just a workaround.

I read your posting some weeks ago and am also looking forward to hearing wyDay's opinion.

>1. Customer runs offline deactivation>2. Customer sends us the request file>3. Customer immediately runs the offline activation file again and is now reactivated

Currently the call to the limelm.pkey.manualActivation automatically defaults with an expiration date of 2 days after the activation request file is created. So, I'd recommend for cases where the customer activates offline, to disable deactivations for the product key.

But, like I said, we'll build this into LimeLM in the near future.

>limelm.pkey.manualActivation automatically defaults with an expiration date of 2 daysOK that's good to know, I couldn't see this in the documentation.

>So, I'd recommend for cases where the customer activates offline, to disable deactivations for the product key.We don't really want to do this because it is actually quite a common situation in our business (a lot of our customers are on ships with limited or no internet).

>But, like I said, we'll build this into LimeLM in the near future.I don't think you did say, could you clarify what exactly you will be doing and how soon?

Another solution to this scenario might be to make the response files self destruct on use (not literally like Mission Impossible although that would be cool). For example store a hash of the XML and don't allow it to be used again. We might actually implement this ourselves but it won't be as secure as if you did it.

Regards,Robin

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