---
layout: docs
page_title: Nomad Enterprise Licensing
sidebar_title: 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 its own license. 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](https://nomadproject.io/trial) 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. See issue [gh-9958]
for more details.

## Expiring Licenses

Nomad Enterprise license have an expiration time. You can read the license on
a server with the `nomad license get` command:

```
$ nomad license get
Product        = nomad
License Status = valid
License ID     = eaaecbd5-b598-4fa4-b649-bb234bf49fa3
Customer ID    = ae94bdd0-39bf-4c58-bf80-8a9468b0467c
Issued At      = 2021-03-29 14:47:29.024191 -0400 EDT
Expires At     = 2021-03-29 20:47:29.024191 -0400 EDT
Datacenter     = *
Modules:
        governance-policy
        multicluster-and-efficiency
Licensed Features:
        Automated Upgrades
        Enhanced Read Scalability
        Redundancy Zones
        Namespaces
        Resource Quotas
        Audit Logging
        Sentinel Policies
        Multiregion Deployments
        Automated Backups
        Multi-Vault Namespaces
        Dynamic Application Sizing
```

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.

Note that if the server is restarted with an expired license, it will
immediately stop.

## 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](https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/nomad/hashicorp-enterprise-license?in=nomad/enterprise) 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](/docs/commands/license) for more information on
interacting with the Enterprise License.

[gh-9958]: https://github.com/hashicorp/nomad/issues/9958
[releases site]: https://releases.hashicorp.com/nomad
[license configuration]: /docs/configuration/server#license_path
[license endpoint]: /api-docs/operator/license#updating-the-nomad-enterprise-license