Use Cron at License Period End

Feb 2017

Introduction

This is hopefully a short term fix to a Licensing issue. There is now the ability to generate time expired licenses for the MFEL product. However at this time the licensing does not appear to actually expire. While this is not an issue on appliances, on software only supply this is an issue as we are potentially giving away software.
The short term answer is to use a Cron job to remove the software on a particular date (assuming you have access to the software installation in the first place).

About Cron

Cron (short for the Greek Chronos) is a utility that can run tasks on a time basis, be it once, or weekly, daily etc. The format of Cron is as follows:

* * * * * command to be executed
- - - - -
| | | | |
| | | | +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Where = Sunday)
| | | +------- month (1 - 12)
| | +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
| +----------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------- min (0 - 59)

For Cron to work, the current date/time on the host must be correct. Cron will run a simple command line that just uninstalls the relevant software product.

Configure Cron

To create a Cron job, use the following (you might get a warning if this is the first time Cron has been executed).

crontab -e

Press i to enter insert mode.
Copy in the following line.
0 0 15 6 * /opt/envivio/muse/bin/envivio_muse_uninstall.sh
Use :wq to save and exit.

Cron Job Explanation

The Cron job we just configured has the following syntax.

0 0 15 6 * /opt/envivio/muse/bin/envivio_muse_uninstall.sh

This means Cron will schedule this task for midnight (0 0) on the 15th June (15 6). Please note their is no year field in Cron, so you can't easily set a date that is more than a year in the future.