2 License server installation

2.1 Prerequisites

Note Please always run the QF-Test license server with its own Java. If you need to minimize space, e.g. for running the server inside a Docker container together with other applications, a current version of Java 8 or Java 17 should also work.

The QF-Test license server functionality is currently part of the main QF-Test installation and not available as a separate package. Thus the installation is identical to the installation of QF-Test itself, documented in the QF-Test manual, chapter 1.

It is possible, but not strictly necessary, to run the license server under a dedicated user account. For security reasons the "root" or "Administrator" accounts should not be used.

2.2 License files

Besides the usual information about numbers and kinds of licenses and GUI engines, two additional parameters are required for server and client licenses: The hostname or IP address of the license server and a dedicated port number reserved for the license server on this host. These must be provided to QFS for creating the server and client license files, and the server will be limited to running on the specified host and port.

The QF-Test license server requires a special server license that should be saved under the name "license.server" in the system directory of QF-Test. On Windows, depending on the type of installation, this is %PROGRAMDATA%\QFS\QF-Test or the root directory of your QF-Test installation as it is on Linux. This license cannot be used on any other machine.

A matching client license is needed to administrate the server. The client license is similar to a normal QF-Test license and should be saved in the QF-Test system directory and named license with no extension.

QF-Test instances that need to get their license from the server should use the client license in place of their normal license. One of the great advantages of the license server is that the client license is constant and does not need to be updated when the QF-Test version changes or additional instances are added to the license.

It is always possible to use a specific license via the command line argument -license <file>.