Multiple INCREMENT Lines Can Cause Problems With Expiry At Midnight

[#1]

Summary

A license file with multiple INCREMENT lines of differing expiry dates can issues with the midnight reread when one of them expires.

Symptoms

Consider this license file example -

INCREMENT f1 demo 1.0 20-dec-2016 1 SIGN=
INCREMENT f1 demo 1.0 10-dec-2016 1 SIGN=

The two counts of f1 are in the same license pool, and occur in the license file in decreasing order of expiry date. A client checks out both instances of f1 on the morning of 10 December. At midnight the client should, but does not, enter a reconnection state for the single expiring license as the first license is still valid.

Resolution

If the INCREMENT lines are sorted in order of increasing expiry date, the client will correctly enter a reconnection state at midnight on 10 December.

This can be achieved by changing the order within the file or more reliably with the use of sort attribute, for example,

INCREMENT f1 demo 1.0 20-dec-2016 1 sort=2 SIGN=
INCREMENT f1 demo 1.0 10-dec-2016 1 sort=1 SIGN=

Note - This issue does not occur for instances of f1 in different license pools - as would be the case with a version change