Licencing

One of the challenges with running Ignition in containers is that the Machine ID—which traditional licence keys are tied to—changes every time the container is recreated.

For dynamic environments like Kubernetes, Leased Licencing is the recommended method.

Leased Licencing

Leased Licencing (using an 8-character Licence Key) is the preferred method for Kubernetes deployments. It does not rely on a static Machine ID; instead, it checks out a licence session from the Inductive Automation licence server (or an on-premise Licence Server).

Benefits for Kubernetes

• Resilience: If a pod is rescheduled or recreated, it simply checks out a new session.
• Flexibility: Easily scale Frontend nodes without worrying about individual Machine IDs.
• Automation: No manual intervention is required to “re-activate” a licence after a pod restart.

Frontend Licensing (Scaleout)

In a Scaleout architecture, Frontend nodes are often designed to be ephemeral. Using Leased Licencing allows these nodes to be horizontally scaled (via HPA) while automatically managing their licence state.