Is a "Confirmation Request" merely a duplicate of the original CapabilityRequest?

[jmoleary]

I had my test client send a capability request to my FNO server to DEactivate a license on a machine.  It returned success but refreshing my FNO server showed the license was still activated on the server

By dumb luck I found the running my test program again and sending a duplicate of the original deactivation request made the server acknowledge the update   

Later on I realized that the original request response was setting the "confirmation request needed" flag.  In other words, calling the function

    FlcCapabilityResponseGetConfirmationRequestNeeded() 

returned true.  (They do like their long function names don't they? :-))

So now, whenever I see that flag set in a response, I just immediately send a duplicate of the original capability request as my "confirmation request"

Is this the correct course of action?  Or is there some sort of special "Send Confirmation Request" API  or flag I should be using instead?

[jberthold · Accepted solution]

Hi @jmoleary,

The confirmation request is an added level of security to prove that the requesting device did indeed process the capability response when reducing the licensed quantity.  Sending the capability request a second time achieves that purpose.  When performing an online activation it's not really an issue, as it is transparent to the user, however let's consider an offline activation.  The client device generates a capability request .bin file to return a license.  The customer then uploads this request file in the FNO customer portal and then receives a response file back.   Before the client processes the response file, it still has the original license in trusted storage.  If it does not process the response file do you want FlexNet Operations to credit the license back to the entitled account?  By default FlexNet Operations will not credit the license back until the client processes the response and then uploads a second request file to prove the first response to reduce quantity was indeed processed.   

So, with offline activation it will take two trips to the customer portal to return a license, which can be cumbersome.  If you are more trusting of your customers you can disable the need for the second confirmation request.  To do this go to System / Configure / Embedded Devices /  License Generation and enable "Skip Confirmation".  This disables the second (confirmation) capability request, licenses will be immediately credited back to the entitlement when FNO receives the capability request from a device to decrease the number of licenses.

Thx,

Jim

[jmoleary]

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the detailed answer.  I appreciate it. 

I should clarify, I totally am on board with the need for a confirmation request.  I just wanted to make sure that what I was doing was the correct way to confirm (or rather the "most correct" way) and not some accidental backdoor approach that worked incidentally.    I guess I'm used to each thing have it's own dedicated function so I figured there would be a specific code or type for confirmation requests.