Licenses

AIStor requires an active and unexpired MinIO Commercial License.

Use mc license info to check your current license status.

The license is available in MinIO SUBNET.

1. Log in to SUBNET.

2. From the Deployments screen, select License Key.

3. Select the copy button to the right of license key string.

   or

   Select Download to save the minio.license to your local device.

   

4. Save the license value or file according to your security guidelines. For example, store the license value in a secure vault.

If this is a new deployment, register it with SUBNET using mc license register to enable automatic license updates and support features.

AIStor automatically attempts to renew expired licenses from SUBNET every 24 hours. If your license is renewed in SUBNET, AIStor detects and applies the updated license without manual intervention.

You can also manually update the license using one of the following methods.

Use the mc license update command to update the license in your deployment.

Automatic update from SUBNET:

mc license update ALIAS

AIStor retrieves the latest license from SUBNET and applies it to the deployment.

Update using a license file:

mc license update ALIAS /path/to/minio.license

Replace /path/to/minio.license with the path to your downloaded license file.

• Replace ALIAS with the alias for your deployment.

You can also update the license by replacing the license file on all AIStor nodes.

1. Use the Accessing your license instructions to download the new license from SUBNET.

2. Replace the license file on all AIStor nodes.

   Kubernetes (Helm)

   Upgrade the Helm installation with the new license:

   helm upgrade -n aistor aistor minio/aistor-objectstore-operator \
     --set license="eyJhbGciOiJFUzM4NCIsInR..."
   

   Replace the license value with your decoded JWT token from SUBNET.

   If you use a custom values file, include it in the upgrade:

   helm upgrade -n aistor aistor minio/aistor-objectstore-operator \
     --set license="eyJhbGciOiJFUzM4NCIsInR..." \
     -f aistor-objectstore-operator-values.yaml
   

   Linux

   Replace minio.license in opt/minio/ with the new minio.license file downloaded from SUBNET.

   This must be done on each node in the AIStor deployment.

3. Wait for automatic license refresh or restart AIStor.

   AIStor automatically detects and applies license file changes every 24 hours.

   To apply the license immediately, restart AIStor by running:

   mc admin service restart ALIAS
   

   • Replace ALIAS with the alias for your deployment.
   Downtime

   Restarting AIStor may result in minimal downtime for your AIStor server.

4. Verify the license was applied successfully.

   mc license info ALIAS
   

   Replace ALIAS with the alias for your deployment.

It is important to keep an active license to maintain access to AIStor and the data stored in your deployment.

When a license expires, AIStor transitions through several states before the deployment becomes inaccessible. The following tables summarize the effects of license expiration.

Grace period (0-30 days after expiry)

During the grace period, AIStor continues to operate normally with full functionality. However, warning messages appear in the server logs.

The warning message includes the grace period end date:

WARN: License expired on '<expiry-date>',
MinIO will disallow object creation starting from '<grace-end-date>'.
Renew immediately to avoid outage.

Safe mode (30-90 days after expiry)

After the grace period ends, AIStor enters safe mode. In safe mode, the server continues running but blocks write operations to prevent data modification.

Read operations remain available to allow data retrieval and migration.

The warning message includes the termination date:

WARN: License expired on '<expiry-date>'.
MinIO is currently operating in safe mode, wherein object creation is disallowed.
Process will terminate on '<termination-date>'. Renew immediately to avoid outage.

Operations blocked in safe mode:

• Creating buckets
• Uploading objects
• Starting multipart uploads

Operations allowed in safe mode:

• Reading objects
• Listing buckets and objects
• Downloading objects

Blocked operations return an error:

• HTTP Status: 403 Forbidden
• Error Code: AccessDenied
• Message: “This action cannot be performed because the license is not installed or has expired.”

No license installed

If AIStor starts without a license, the server operates in safe mode with the same restrictions as the read-only period.

The warning message indicates that no license is found:

WARN: No valid license found, running in safe mode.
Please install a valid license for full functionality.

To install a license:

1. Access your license from SUBNET
2. Use mc license register to register a new deployment with SUBNET, or use mc license update to retrieve the latest license from SUBNET or apply a license file
3. Verify the license status with mc license info