LICENSING USING A NODE LOCKED VIRTUAL MACHINE

摘要

A method of licensing software to a particular instance of a virtual machine that is being run as part of an Active Directory domain. Since a virtual machine is a simulation of a physical machine, i.e. a computer, it can easily be cloned to produce an exact duplicate. This poses a problem when it is desired to license an instance of software for use only on a particular virtual machine. The technology disclosed allows for software to be licensed for execution only on a particular instance of a virtual machine that is being run as part of an Active Directory domain.

主权项

1. A method of obtaining a license certificate for software executing on an instance of a Microsoft Windows® operating system executing on a virtual machine, abbreviated VM, belonging to an Active Directory domain to the VM, including:
obtaining a machine ID from an instance of a Microsoft Windows® operating system executing on a VM and belonging to an Active Directory domain; obtaining a domain ID for said Active Directory domain; sending to a license grant application the machine ID and the domain ID or a unique value derived from the machine ID and the domain ID; and receiving from the license grant application digitally signed license data that includes the machine ID and the domain ID or a unique value derived from the machine ID and the domain ID; and storing the digitally signed license data.