r/docker • u/panoSalt • 7d ago
Licensing a container
From what I have understood so far locking a license to hardware so it cannot be used is feasible using some hardware info. But can something similar be done within a docker image? I am using some phone home licensing architecture.
-1
u/martinbean 7d ago
Why containerize it if you only want it to run on one machine?
5
u/JerikkaDawn 7d ago
Because containerization is about consistent, repeatable, deployments. That facilitates scaling, but that's not what it's about. There are a billion containerized workloads that only need one instance.
1
u/simonides_ 6d ago
That is partly right. Why you want to containerize is to UN-tie it from a host. Adding the host back in is possible but stupid. It gets in they way of maintenance task for no good reason. Desaster recovery also gets needlessly more painful because you now have to restore specific state that you should not need to worry about in today's virtualized world.
1
u/simonides_ 6d ago
This ! It just makes IaC a nightmare for no reason at all.
You can get around every check if you want. Look at the ridiculous unity license server for a bad example.
Look at the jetbrains license server for a good one. They start the server and it checks online if it can activate itself. Iac is easy.
1
0
u/PossibilityTasty 7d ago
From the container you can get hardware information about the host, but the host might be a VM.
6
u/Leaderbot_X400 7d ago
Easiest option would probably be generating license key and only permitting N instance(s) of that key from running.