Licensing & updates

An unlicensed deployment is not a crippled deployment: it runs as free Starter. A licence raises the technician, session and device limits and unlocks SSO, branding and code signing.

Tiers and limits

These caps are derived on your own deployment from the tier in the licence, so they apply identically whether or not the relay can reach the internet. Current prices are on the Rubix Hub and in the pricing table.

Activation is two steps, and it has to be

A licence key is an Ed25519-signed payload that embeds the node id of the deployment it is for. That id does not exist until you have installed the product and started it once — so the key cannot be issued before installation. Hence:

Nobody is emailed a licence key by this website, and nothing on it will tell you one is coming. If you are waiting for a key after step 1, you are waiting for something that will not arrive — go and activate instead.

Doing it

1. Request a code (Starter) or buy a plan, and check your email.
2. Sign in to your own portal and open Settings → License. Copy the Device/Node ID.
3. Paste the code and that Node ID into the activation page.
4. Copy the licence key it returns back into the same Settings → License screen and click Activate.

Your plan's features unlock immediately — no restart. Re-submitting the same code and node id is idempotent: it returns the existing key and does not consume another seat, so a double-click cannot cost you one. Your codes and keys are also listed in your Rubix Hub account.

Verification is offline

The relay verifies the licence signature against an Ed25519 public key baked into the build — not into your configuration. That is deliberate in both directions. It means a deployment with no outbound internet access licenses and runs normally. It also means a self-hosted relay cannot be pointed at an attacker-controlled key to mint its own unlimited licences; changing the trusted key requires a new signed build.

A licence is also scoped: one that names a different product, or that is bound to a different node id, is rejected outright rather than partially honoured.

Expiry has a grace window, and a floor

Past the expiry date the deployment keeps working for 14 days, reporting a warning status the whole time. After that it reverts to the free Starter tier. It does not stop working, and it does not lock you out of your own support infrastructure — a renewal that slips through procurement should not become an outage.

Updates

Two independent things update, and only one of them needs you.

The server

Re-run the installer, or rebuild the container. The relay also checks the Hub for the latest signed build manifest for its release channel, so Settings → License can tell you an update exists and offer to download and apply it.

The Windows clients

An installed client asks your relay — not us — for its published agent version. If the relay has something newer, the service downloads it and hands off to an update child process that stops the service, swaps the binary and restarts on the new build. It runs as SYSTEM, so it has the rights to do that without prompting anyone. It checks every six hours, and an operator can push an update from the portal and watch the progress states.

On a Business licence with code signing configured, the relay Authenticode-signs the client binary with your certificate as it serves it, complete with an RFC 3161 timestamp — so your end users see your organization as the publisher.