Automatic vs. Manual Seat Deactivation

By default, an instance will attempt to automatically deactivate its floating license seat on shutdown. This behavior is ideal for a containerized environment, as container storage is typically ephemeral and is disposed of when a container ends. Deactivating the seat immediately allows another container to use the seat right away.

In a non-containerized environment, manual seat deactivation may be a better option. When configured for manual deactivation:

• Activation data is stored on the local file system and updated after each communication with the licensing server.

• At instance start up time, stored activation data can be used to activate licensed features (assuming the activation data is still current), even if the licensing server can’t be contacted at that time – for example, during an Internet service outage.

• The seat will remain active as long as the instance heartbeat signal is received periodically.

• The CLI can be used to manually deactivate the seat, as needed.

To configure an instance for manual seat deactivation, set the environment variable:

For example, this can be set in a VS Code launch configuration like this:

Open

Or in an IBM i STRTCPSVR instance configuration like this: