Licensing

ThinForge manages any number of thin clients — no licence file, no upper limit. A licence is required for the VPN connection only: the bundle unlocks a fixed number of VPN seats. Without a licence, device management, rollouts and delta updates remain fully available — you just cannot activate VPN clients.

The states at a glance

State	Meaning
Free	No licence installed. Client management is unlimited; VPN clients cannot be activated.
Licensed	A valid bundle. The number of VPN seats stored in the bundle is unlocked.
Expired	The expiry date has passed. There is no grace period — existing VPN clients keep running, new ones can no longer be activated.

Only activated VPN clients are counted. How many thin clients you manage in total makes no difference to the licence.

Viewing the status

As an administrator you find the licence status under Settings in the Licence tab. The status card shows:

Licence details — licensee, licence number and the expiry date.
VPN seats in use as a progress bar (“3 of 25 VPN clients in use”): blue below 90 %, orange from 90 %, red once every seat is taken.
A banner if the licence has expired.

Without a licence the card notes that client management is unlimited and a licence is only needed for VPN — this is not an error but the normal state of many installations.

Uploading a licence bundle

You receive a licence bundle from the manufacturer as a .7z file. Keep it ready and upload it:

Select the bundle — choose the file you received.
Upload — the server verifies the signature and applies the file.
On success the card refreshes immediately and the VPN seats are available at once.

Note: If a file is rejected, it is usually due to a wrong format, a corrupted transfer, a wrong password or a licence using the old per-client count. Such legacy licences are no longer accepted — when in doubt, request a current bundle.

When every VPN seat is taken

VPN clients that are already activated stay connected. Only activating further devices is blocked:

Activating a VPN client — is rejected; the message names the seats in use and the seats licensed.
Without a licence — activation is rejected with a note that a licence is required for it.

The rest of device management is unaffected: creating clients, groups, rollouts and delta updates all continue independently of the licence.

Removing and renewing a licence

Use Remove to delete the licence; the installation falls back to the free state. Existing VPN connections remain, but new ones can only be activated once a valid licence is in place again.

To renew, simply upload the new bundle over the old one — the server replaces the existing file without a restart.

Note: Database backups include the licence file. Read more under Settings.