© Copyright Robert Vasvari, 1993-2003.
Licensing RBrowser
Before you can use RBrowser, you need to license the program.
Licenses may be obtained from www.rbrowser.com. Once
you have a license key, enter it into the License Registry Panel.
Click on the Help/License Registry menu to bring up the
License Registry Panel:
License Search Directories:
When RBrowser starts up, it looks for licenses in the folders
defined in this section. It must find one, otherwise only the
basic FTP functionality will work. RBrowser supplies the defaults
(~/Library/Licenses, /Local/Licenses)
to search. For most users these will do just fine. For networked
installations there may be licenses in other shared directories.
Click on the "Add" button to add more folders to
search. To restore the factory default search list, click
"Reset".
If you want to define these directories as a global default
for all of your users, you can edit the
RBReadLicenseDirs entry in the
GlobalPrefs.xml file in the app wrapper. Please
refer to the Network installation section in
Firewall Options Panel for
instructions on how to edit this file.
Licenses in Use:
This section will show all users currently using RBrowser on the
local LAN. Use this screen to see who is using the available licenses
on your local network.
Found Licenses:
Shows all available valid licenses found by RBrowser by searching the folders listed above. One of these will be used to launch RBrowser.
Host Id:
The Host Id is unique for each computer. The Host Id is used for
hostbound licenses. For full description of the different license
types visit the
Licensing
Terms page.
License Key/Owner:
Once you have obtained a license from www.rbrowser.com, enter the
key and the owner EXACTLY as they are given. Preferably, you
should copy/paste to avoid misspelling errors. After entering the
correct strings in both fields, click "Set". If the
license is accepted, it will appear in the Found Licenses
section.
How does it work?
Finding Licenses: In order to run, RBrowser
has to find a valid license. Licenses are stored in files in
certain folders. By default, the app wrapper (RBrowser.app),
~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser and
/Licenses/RBrowser are searched. To add folders to
this list click "Add" in the top section of the
Registry Panel. Upon startup, RBrowser will scan these folders
(defined in the RBReadLicenseDirs default), and pick
the highest level valid license it can find. Expired or otherwise
invalid licenses will be ignored. So, if you have a Basic and a
Professional license both accessible, RBrowser try to use the
Professional one. If it turns out that this license is already
used on the same network, RBrowser will go down the list of valid
licenses until it finds one it can use, or you will get an error
panel informing you of the license situation.
Saving Licenses: When you enter the license
string into the Registry Panel and click "Enter
License," RBrowser will check to see if the license is
valid. If so, it will ask you where to save the license file.
There are different ways of saving this license file depending on
whether or not you want to make the license available for others.
By default, RBrowser will save the license in
<YOUR_HOME>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser.
In this case, this will be your personal license, since no other
user can see it. To make the license available for others you
have two choices:
- Shared: In this case RBrowser will attempt
to save the license in /Library/Licenses/RBrowser.
You have to be the administrative user to do this, otherwise you
are not permitted to write into /Library. Once the
license is saved, all users on this host will be able to use the
license.
- Custom: In case of network installations
there is usually a shared folder on a server. Selecting the
"Custom" option allows you to save the license into
such a folder, and by doing so, making the license available to
all users on the local LAN. If the license is in a custom folder,
make sure this folder is added to the list of folders searched
by RBrowser for licenses (click "Add" in the top
section of the Registry Panel).
Please note: Once the license is saved the license
file cannot be moved or copied! Doing so will invalidate
this file, and the license key will have to be entered again. You
must use RBrowser to save the license where you want by the
options described above. This is to make sure unauthorized
persons cannot steal a license.
It is imperative that you hold onto the original
license key and the e-mail that was sent to you. If you
perform a "clean" system installation, move your home
folder from one drive to another, restore from backup, etc.
you will need to re-enter the license information.
Network Installation:
If you have many computers on the subnet and have a centralized server that
serves up both licenses and applications, there is an easy way
to install RBrowser such that the client machines will not have
to be touched at all. Let's say you have a network drive that is
mounted on all client computers under /Local. In there you have /Local/Applications
that among other apps contains RBrowser, and /Local/Licenses into which
you save the RBrowser license using the procedures outlined above.
That means that you installed RBrowser on the server onto the shared drive,
and saved the license using the "Custom" setting.
The next thing is to make sure the copies of RBrowser that are started on the client
machines will know where to look for the license. You can tell each client
where the license is (read RBReadLicenseDirs above) but that is very tedious
when you have a lot of clients. It is simpler to simply change the global
default value of RBReadLicenseDirs that is stored inside the installed copy
of RBrowser on the server.
Here is how: inside RBrowser.app there is Contents/Resources/GlobalDefaults.xml.
Using your favourite text(or xml) editor open this file for editing. Be sure to keep a backup copy
just in case you mess it up. Look for the RBReadLicenseDirs section:
<key>RBReadLicenseDirs</key>
<array>
<string>~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
</array>
Add another line to it which contains the license directory path as seen FROM THE CLIENT:
<key>RBReadLicenseDirs</key>
<array>
<string>~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Local/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
</array>
Save and you are done.
Be VERY CAREFUL! If you mess up the xml format, RBrowser will not be able to read this file.
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