Licensing
ThinForge is fully functional in the free tier and manages up to 50 active clients without a licence file. Only beyond that do you need a licence bundle, which primarily raises the client counter. If the limit is exceeded, the most recently added client is downgraded and loses premium features such as delta updates, rollouts and snapshot management.
The tiers at a glance
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Free | No licence or an expired one. Limit: 50 active clients. |
| Licensed | A valid bundle. The limit matches the client count stored in the bundle. |
| Grace period | 60 days after expiry. The limit stays in place and a warning banner appears. |
| Expired | More than 60 days after expiry. Falls back to the free tier (50 clients). |
All regular devices count as active clients. Devices marked as stock do not count (see below).
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 expiry date.
- Active clients against the limit as a progress bar: blue below 90 %, orange from 90 %, red once the limit is reached.
- A banner if the grace period is running or the bundle has expired.
In the free tier the card simply reads "Free version" — this is not an error but the normal state of many installations.
Uploading a licence bundle
You receive a licence file from the manufacturer. Just keep it ready and upload it:
- Select the bundle — choose the file you received.
- Upload — the server validates the file and applies it.
- On success the card refreshes immediately and the new limit takes effect at once.
Behaviour at the limit
Once the limit is reached, all existing clients stay fully functional — heartbeat, remote access and rollouts continue unchanged. Only the creation of new devices is blocked:
- Creating a new client — is rejected with a "Limit reached" message.
- CSV import — the import runs through; rows beyond the limit are skipped and reported as rejected in the result message.
Stock devices
In the detail form you can mark a client as a stock device. Such devices do not count towards the limit and appear semi-transparent in the list with an orange chip. When you roll the device out to a workstation, you remove the marking by hand in the detail form — from then on the client counts again.
Removing and renewing a licence
Use Remove to delete the licence; the installation falls back to the free tier. Clients already registered above the 50 limit stay functional, only the creation of new clients is blocked until there is room again or a new licence is uploaded.
To renew, simply upload the new bundle over the old one — the server replaces the existing file without a restart.