VI Package Manager: Licensing a Package

[Roso]

Overview

In previous tutorials, we have created a package for our API.  We created a palette; added examples, help items, and Tools menu items; included a licensing agreement; and defined our custom installation options.  Now we will assume that we intend on selling our toolkit to LabVIEW users.  When selling a toolkit, a common practice is to license your package to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the toolkit after an evaluation period.  Using VIPM Free Edition, you can license a library using the NI Licensing and Activation Toolkit, documented here.  Once you have a license file for your library, you can associate and include the license file with the package using VIPM.  You can also bind the license file to the package using VIPM Pro Edition.

Note: In order to build a licensed library into a package, the library must be fully activated on the build computer. With VIPM Professional edition, you can license an unlicensed library at build time. For more information on the professional edition features, please see the VIPM Documentation.

Licensing with VIPM Free Edition

• Create a package build specification for your add-on as described in the above document but do not build the package yet.
• Make sure you use the new “licensed” directory as the source directory in VI Package Builder.
• Make sure that the Company Name used in the Add-on Licensing Tool EXACTLY matches the Company Name in VI Package Builder. This is required in order for licensing to work correctly.
• On the Licensing & Activation page, choose the license file path and Licensed library file path that was created by the Licensing and Activation Tool.

• Click the Build button to begin the VIPM build.

Note: If you get error 1507 during build, it means that the add-on was in an evaluation or invalid state on the build computer. To resolve this, you must first activate the add-on in LabVIEW before building your package.

• The resulting VI Package can now be installed on another computer with a 30 day trial.

Licensing with VIPM Pro Edition

With VIPM Pro Edition, you can skip the NI Licensing Tool and use Package Builder to do the library binding: This method is more convenient because it allows you to preserve your original unlicensed source code.

• Enter the License file path and library file path in the Licensing & Activation page (the same as indicated above)

• Enable the Bind license to library at build time checkbox.

• Fill in the information required in the License, Activation Methods and Library Protection tabs shown below.

• Purchase URL: SOLO Server purchase URL for product (not required). This URL is launched in the default web browser of target machines if they wish to purchase the add-on from within the activation wizard.
• License File Password: This is the password used when you created the license (lf) file with the SoftwareKey LFEdit application.

• Web Activation URL: Web URL if you want to show a webpage where end users can go to get manual activation codes.
• Phone Activation Number: Phone number if you accept activations over the phone.
• Automated Online Activation URL: The SOLO Server Activation URL for add-on. This is the URL that is launched by the default web browser on the target machine when they want to log-in to get activation codes. This is also used to compute the automatic activation address.

Note: Must be of the form http://solo-instalation-server/  …/unlock/

If you created a license using the free TPLAT Standard mode and the NI-hosted SOLO Server, this URL will be https://softwarekey.ni.com/solo/unlock/

• Password type: This is the password to use for locking your licensed library (lvlib). VIPM will apply this password to the library before it is built into a package.

Final Words

This concludes the Tools Network Developer Center series on VI Package Manager. Click here to return to the Table of Contents to view other tutorials or for more resources for distributing add-ons.