Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This FAQ is for the license changes introduced in Nomad Enterprise version v1.6.0+ent.

For license-related FAQ for earlier versions, please refer to earlier versions of this document using the version drop-down on this page, e.g. v1.5.x.

Q: Can I get a quick summary of the Nomad changes?

Starting with Nomad Enterprise v1.6.0, license expiration is different.

For trial licenses, the behavior remains the same. Enterprise features will stop working when the license expires, and a server can not start with an expired license.

For new "non-terminating" contract licenses, instead of expiration being compared to the current time, expiration time is compared to the build date of the Nomad binary, which you can find in the output of the nomad version command.

The practical result is that newer contract licenses will work in perpetuity for any v1.6.0+ version of Nomad built prior to the expiration time of the license. No features will stop working, and server agents can be restarted safely.

However, if you try to upgrade to a newer binary past license expiration, the server will not start. To proactively avoid that, you can test a new binary with your license using the new nomad license inspect command before trying to upgrade your servers.

Q: What resources are available?

The list below is a great starting point for learning more about license usage in general.

Q: Does this affect older versions of Nomad?

This change only affects Nomad Enterprise version v1.6.0+ent and later.

Q: Does the license have to be present on Nomad client nodes?

Only Nomad server nodes need to have the license present. Nomad agents running with the -dev flag will also need a license.

Q: What are some pitfalls that could be experienced during an upgrade because of the license changes?

If you have an expired license that has not yet become fully nonfunctional (i.e. it is in grace period between ExpirationTime and TerminationTime), then a Nomad server will not be able to start using a new v1.6.0+ binary.

Before shutting down a server agent to replace it with a new version, be sure to run nomad license inspect with the new binary.

Q: How can a user get their existing license?

If you are an existing HashiCorp enterprise customer you may contact your organization's customer success manager (CSM) or email support-softwaredelivery@hashicorp.com for information on how to get your organization's enterprise license. You can use nomad license get to retrieve information about the license, but not the license itself.

Q: What happens when a license expires?

All features will continue to work until you attempt to upgrade Nomad that is newer than your license expiration time. In that case, the server agent will fail to start, and you'll need to roll back to the previous working version and acquire a new license to use with the newer Nomad version before attempting the upgrade again.

Q: Are licenses cluster-specific? node-specific?

Licenses can be reused on different nodes and different clusters.

Q: Where can users get a trial license for Nomad?

Follow these instructions to request and enable a free 30-day trial license.

Q: When a Nomad client agent restarts, will it still need a license file?

Every time nomad agent runs as a server (or in -dev), it requires a license.

Q: May I downgrade Nomad Enterprise from v1.6.0 to an earlier version?

Yes, if you upgrade a server to 1.6.0+ but it fails to start due to license expiration, you can roll back to a previous working version with the old expiration logic.

If a server fails to start for any other reason aside from license expiration, roll back to a previous version is not supported due to the Nomad state store not having forward compatibility, and may result in a crash loop.

Q: Is there a tutorial available for the license configuration steps?

Please visit the Enterprise License Tutorial.