---
layout: docs
page_title: Nomad Enterprise Licensing
description: >-
  Learn about how Nomad Enterprise licensing works.
---

## Nomad Enterprise Licensing

Licensing capabilities were added to Nomad Enterprise v0.12.0. Each server in
the cluster must have a license to start. Nomad Enterprise can be downloaded from
the [releases site].

Click [here](https://www.hashicorp.com/go/nomad-enterprise) to set up a demo of Nomad Enterprise
or [here](/nomad/tutorials/enterprise/hashicorp-enterprise-license#request-a-trial-license)
for instructions on how to get a trial license.

~> **Note:** A Nomad Enterprise cluster cannot be downgraded to the open
source version of Nomad. Servers running the open source version of Nomad will
panic if they are joined to a Nomad Enterprise cluster, due to raft entries
relating to Enterprise features not being parseable by open source Nomad.

## Expiring Licenses

Nomad Enterprise licenses have an expiration time.
You can read and validate the license on a running server,
on disk, or in your environment with the
[`nomad license` commands](/nomad/docs/commands/license).

Before upgrading Nomad or replacing your license with a new one, you should always run
[`nomad license inspect`](/nomad/docs/commands/license/inspect)
to ensure the license is valid with your server binary.

As a Nomad Enterprise license approaches its expiration time, Nomad servers
will periodically log a warning message about the approaching
expiration. Below shows log excerpts of the warnings.

```
    2021-03-29T15:02:28.100-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=5m0s
    2021-03-29T15:03:28.103-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=4m0s
    2021-03-29T15:04:28.106-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=3m0s
    2021-03-29T15:05:28.109-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=2m0s
    2021-03-29T15:06:28.112-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=1m0s
    2021-03-29T15:07:28.114-0400 [WARN]  nomad.licensing: license expiring: time_left=0s
    2021-03-29T15:07:58.104-0400 [ERROR] nomad.licensing: license expired, please update license: error="invalid license or license is expired"
```

When the license expires, enterprise functionality will become limited. Only
read operations on enterprise endpoints will be supported, and write
operations will return an error.

## Configuring the License

See the server [license configuration] reference documentation on all the
options to set an enterprise license. Nomad will load the license file from
disk or environment when it starts.

~> **Note:** An Enterprise license [tutorial](/nomad/tutorials/enterprise/hashicorp-enterprise-license) is available to help you install the license on the server.

In order to immediately alert operators of a bad configuration setting, if a
license configuration option is an invalid or expired license, the Nomad server
will exit with an error.

```
NOMAD_LICENSE=misconfigured nomad agent -dev
==> No configuration files loaded
==> Starting Nomad agent...
==> Error starting agent: server setup failed: failed to initialize enterprise licensing: a file license was configured but the license is invalid: error decoding version: expected integer
```

See the [License commands](/nomad/docs/commands/license) for more information on
interacting with the Enterprise License.

[releases site]: https://releases.hashicorp.com/nomad
[license configuration]: /nomad/docs/configuration/server#license_path
[license endpoint]: /nomad/api-docs/operator/license#updating-the-nomad-enterprise-license
