Managing entitlements

This page describes when you might release and claim device entitlements, how to release them, and what happens afterward. It also covers how to claim an entitlement for a device, and how to deactivate the installation completely.

Your license info and entitlements can be viewed in the PaperCut MF admin interface, on the About > Registration page:

When to release entitlements from one Application Server so another server can use them

When a server is to be decommissioned or migrated, you must release the entitlements from it before you shut it down. If this isn’t done, the entitlements remain claimed by that server and will not be available to be claimed by other servers.

Entitlements are not automatically released when you uninstall PaperCut MF from the old server. You must click the Deactivate Installation button on the About > Registration page.

If a server becomes unavailable before the entitlements are released, contact your Accredited Reseller for support.

Some common scenarios for releasing entitlements are to:

• redistribute them to other sites - there are multiple PaperCut MF instances running and you no longer require one of them, so you want to shut down that server and use its entitlements on other servers instead.
• prepare a server to be decommissioned
• reinstalling the server’s operating system.

Releasing all entitlements from an Application Server

To release entitlements on a PaperCut MF instance:

1. Ensure that the Application Server has access to the internet (specifically, it needs access to the Global Entitlements Service - see Firewall Ports for PaperCut NG/MF ).

2. On the About > Registration page, in the Subscriptions section click Deactivate installation.

   
   A confirmation page is displayed.
   

3. Click Deactivate Installation. The instance will enter PaperCut MF Trial mode.
   
   If it’s been less than 40 days since you installed the server, you have the remaining days to use PaperCut MF. Otherwise PaperCut MF will enter Trial Expiry mode, and only the following pages will be available:

   • Users
   • Options
     • General
     • Notifications
     • User/Group Sync
     • Admin Rights
     • Backups
     • Advanced
   • Devices
   • About > Registration

The released entitlements are now available for other Application Servers to use.

If required, you can proceed to shut down the Application Server or uninstall PaperCut MF on this server.

Releasing individual device entitlements

There are two ways to manually release an entitlement from a device:

• Delete the device from PaperCut MF - do this when you do not intend to use the device again.
• Disable the device indefinitely - do this when the device will be used again in the future. The embedded software remains on the device. but users won’t be able to use it. This will change the state of the device to Not Licensed.

Regardless of the method, the entitlement will be added to the pool to be picked up by another device when it’s enabled.

Repeat these steps for each device you want to disable.

1. Ensure that the Application Server has access to the internet (specifically, it needs access to the Global Entitlements Service - see Firewall Ports for PaperCut NG/MF ).
2. In the admin interface, go to the Devices > External Device list tab.
3. Select the device you want to disable. The Summary tab is displayed.
4. In the Configuration section, click the Enable/Disable dropdown and select Disable indefinitely (Not Licensed).
   
5. Click Apply.
6. Go back to the Devices page and disable any other devices whose entitlements you want to release.

Claiming device entitlements

Any device that is not disabled indefinitely will automatically claim an available entitlement. This could be when:

• it’s created
• it’s in a Not Licensed state and an entitlement becomes available
• it was previously disabled indefinitely and then re-enabled.

Enabled devices are available for users to use.

Repeat these steps for each device you want to enable.

1. Ensure that the Application Server has access to the internet (specifically, it needs access to the Global Entitlements Service - see Firewall Ports for PaperCut NG/MF ).
2. In the admin interface, go to the Devices > External Device list tab.
3. Select the device you want to enable. The Summary tab is displayed.
4. In the Configuration section, click the Enable/Disable dropdown and select Enabled.
   
5. Click Apply. The device is enabled.

Identifying devices that are Not Licensed

To find out which devices are disabled:

1. In the admin interface go to the Devices > External Device list page and look for devices with the status Not Licensed.
2. For each of those devices, click the details link and look for No entitlement available.