License Activation

Activation Basics

When RStudio Workbench is first installed on a system it operates in evaluation mode for a period of time and then subsequently requires activation for continued use.

To determine the current license status of your system you can use the following command:

$ sudo rstudio-server license-manager status

After purchasing a license to RStudio Workbench you’ll receive a license key that can be used to activate the license on a given system.

You can activate your license key with the command:

$ sudo rstudio-server license-manager activate <product-key>
$ sudo rstudio-server restart

Note that you need to restart the server in order for licensing changes to take effect.

If you want to move your license of RStudio Workbench to another system you should first deactivate it on the old system with the command:

$ sudo rstudio-server license-manager deactivate

License Details

RStudio Workbench licenses include some details that you’ll see when you run the status command. These are part of the license and can’t be changed without purchasing a different license. They are as follows:

Value Meaning
enable-launcher Whether the Job Launcher is enabled.
sessions The maximum number of concurrent R sessions that can be run; 0 if unlimited.
users The maximum number of users that can connect to the server; 0 if unlimited.

Typically, RStudio Workbench licenses either disable the Launcher but allow for unlimited local users and sessions, or enable the Launcher and provide limits on users and/or sessions. If you have questions about the best kind of license for your use case, contact for help.

Note that when named user licenses are in effect (users is greater than 0), R Session Auditing is enabled by default to help you keep track of which users are using the product.

License Warnings

When the license or evaluation is within 15 days of expiration, a warning will be shown to users inside IDE sessions. The warning indicates the number of days remaining in the license or evaluation period.

You can change the length of the 15-day warning period with the license-warning-days option, which can be set to 0 to disable license warnings altogether:

# /etc/rstudio/rserver.conf
license-warning-days=0
Caution

Disabling license warnings will cause your license to expire without warning to you or your users. We recommend changing this setting only if you have other processes in place to ensure that the license is renewed prior to expiration.