Table of contents

Terms

License 2.0

License 2.0 is the next generation licensing mechanism designed and implemented by Dynamsoft for its products, including Dynamsoft Barcode Reader, Dynamic Web TWAIN, and more.

The following table shows the major differences between License 1.0 and 2.0:

  License 1.0 License 2.0
Expirable Yes Yes
Network Not required Required
Usage trackable No Optional
Hardware binding Optional Optional

Deployment Type

The Deployment Type means how and where the application with Dynamsoft’s SDK is used. For example, the type “mobile” means the application runs in native mobile devices such as iOS or Android; while the type “browser” means the application runs in browsers on any operating system. At present, the types include:

Deployment Type Application Type
Browser A web application running in browsers
Mobile A native application running on iOS or Android
Server (Workstation) An application running on Windows or Linux that processes requests from other client devices
Desktop An application running on Windows, Linux or macOS that handles requests on this specific device.
Embedded An application running on ARM-based Linux that handles requests on this specific device.

Online License

At Dynamsoft, if a license is License 2.0 compliant, we call it an Online License because it requires a network connection to the Dynamsoft license server. In contrast, an offline license refers to a traditional license that operates independently.

Dynamsoft License Server

Dynamsoft License Server (DLS) is proprietary software developed by Dynamsoft to manage and distribute License 2.0 based licenses.

Dynamsoft License Client

Dynamsoft License Client (DLC) is proprietary software developed by Dynamsoft to acquire License 2.0 based licenses from DLS and manage them in a local device. The software is embedded in all Dynamsoft products that support License 2.0.

License File

A License File defines a license based on License 2.0.

Each License File has a unique LicenseId, an Alias and detailed license information (defined by License Item(s)). It also includes information like the licensee (OrganizationID) and whether the license has been activated (LicenseStatus), etc. For example:

LicenseId: 100028117
Alias: Used for Application A
LicenseTextVersion: 2.0
OrganizationID: 216998
LicenseStatus: Activated
LicenseItems:
...//one or multiple License Items

The license contained in the license file is only effective after it is activated. Read more on activate the license.

If you are using Dynamsoft-Hosted DLS, the License File will be imported immediately after it is activated. On the other hand, when hosting your own DLS, you will need to do the license importing manually.

Alias

Alias is another way to identify a license. You can set a meaningful Alias to a license so that you can easily identify the purpose of the license.

A default Alias is created automatically that follows the pattern DM_{License Id}_Date{Activation Date}. A more meaningful Alias could be something like BarcodeReader_License_For_Dynamsoft_Project_ABC.

A few things to know about the Alias:

  • It will show up in the License File and there can only be one Alias per license file.
  • It can only be changed when the LicenseStatus is “New”.

LicenseTextVersion

LicenseTextVersion tells DLS how to parse this license file.

OrganizationID

OrganizationID uniquely designates an organization as the licensee.

License Item

License Item is the basic concept of License 2.0. It defines the exact restrictions for using a Dynamsoft product and is the basic unit when purchasing a license. For example, a license item can be described as a “30-device package for using Dynamsoft Barcode Reader within Browsers”.

License Key

License Key is an alphanumeric string that tells DLC how to connect to DLS and get the required licenses.

Each License Key corresponds to a specific Project within an organization.

Project

A Project defines a group of License Items used together. Each project has an ID (previously known as Handshake Code).

A few things to note:

  • A project can be assigned multiple License Items.
  • Multiple projects can share the same License Item.
  • Quota consumption is based on individual License Items.
  • Statistics are aggregated both per project and per License Item.

Validation Field

Validation Field is a security feature meant to protect the license items configured to a project. This field is a static characteristic of the application for this project. At present, the following three Validation Fields are supported:

  • Website Domain

Applicable to web applications. For example: demo.dynamsoft.com.

  • Application ID

Applicable to mobile applications. For example: com.dynamsoft.DbrDemo.

  • Process Name

Applicable to desktop/server/embedded applications. For example: DynamsoftBarcodeReader.exe.

In the Project Details page, the Validation Field can be configured in “Optional Security Settings”.

Session Password

Session Password, also called “Credential Secret”, is another way to protect the the license items configured to a project. Unlike the Validation Field that validates static application characteristics, the Session Password is a simpler, more flexible string used to authenticate the connection to the DLS itself.

In the Project Details page, the Session Password (Credential Secret) can be configured in “Optional Security Settings”.

When you change the Session Password (Credential Secret), the License Key will be updated to reflect the change. Remember to update the license key you use in your application.

Trial License

Public Trial License

Public Trial License is a special license based on license 2.0. It is provided by Dynamsoft to all users for the purpose of testing Dynamsoft products for a temporary period of time. This license is implemented in most code samples for Dynamsoft products like the ones found in the Dynamsoft Github repositories.

As of March, 2022, the license is good for 24 hours.

Dynamsoft is gradually rolling out this license in the products. If you are having trouble getting this license to work, please feel free to contact us.

Private Trial License

Private Trial License is also based on license 2.0 and are meant for customers who have registered with Dynamsoft. These license is good for 30 days and up to 10,000 devices. If more time is required, the license can be extended for another 15 days.

After registering with Dynamsoft, you can log in and request the private trial license in the customer portal.

Client UUID

Each client machine (a device) is also identified by its UUID which is generated the first time a client machine gets authorized to use a license. All usage reports generated on this client will include this UUID.

The following table shows the differences between DLS UUID and Client UUID:

  DLS UUID Client UUID
Bound to the License Yes No
Bound to usage reports No Yes
Hardware binding Required Optional

For each device, a Client UUID is generated which is used to uniquely identify the device. In other words, we use UUIDs to count the number of devices supported by a license.

Generate a UUID

Different product editions use different mechanisms to generate UUIDs.

  • JavaScript Edition: The UUID is a random string generated when the SDK is first used. The UUID is cached in the browser’s indexedDB which represents a specific browser on a certain domain.

    NOTE:

    • Multiple browsers on the same device are counted as multiple devices since there will be a UUID generated for each browser.
    • The same browsers accessing multiple websites with different domains is counted separately per domain.
  • Mobile Edition:
    • on iOS: The UUID is a random string stored in the keychain associated with the developer’s vendor ID (IDFV) and the application ID.
    • on Android: The UUID is a combination of a random string and information about the OS which is either the Android SERIAL number (before Android v8.0) or ANDROID_ID (Android v8.0+). The UUID is saved as part of the application data.
  • Other Editions: The UUID is a combination of a random string and information about the device including one or more of the following: CPU ID, OS ID and MAC Addresses. The UUID is saved on the machine in a system directory.

All these mechanisms have one thing in common: the UUIDs all contain random information and will be different each time they are regenerated, even if they are generated on/in the same device/browser. In order to maintain the consistency of the information to avoid overcounting the same device/browser, the generated UUID is saved for later retrieval.

In some cases, we may want to make sure a UUID stays unchanged no matter when it is generated. For this purpose, we have an alternative way to generate UUIDs for desktop, embedded or server environments called “Hard Binding”.

Hard Binding

When using Hard Binding, a UUID is directly generated with information about the device:

  • If the device uses an ARM processor, it’s based on the OS ID and the MAC Addresses;
  • In other cases, it’s based on the OS ID and the CPU ID.

With hard binding, the UUID is not saved because the same information can be gathered to regenerate the exact same UUID. However, if you do replace the CPU (or network adapter) or reinstall the operating system, the device will be considered new.

Note

  • When generating the UUID, part of the gathered device information is ignored in the encryption. Therefore the actual device information is never shared with DLS.

Questions

Q: Does the UUID give away information about my device?

A: No. Check out Client UUID for more information.

This page is compatible for:

Version 2.2.19

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