Catalyst 4500R+E, Sup7L-E Strange License Management

Question

We have Catalyst 4500R+E with Sup7L-E (IOS XE 3.4SG). It was bundle with LAN Base License Installed.

#show license summary
Index 0   Feature: entservices
          Period left: 8 weeks 4 days
          License Type: Evaluation
          License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted
          License Count: Non-Counted
          License Priority: None
Index 1   Feature: ipbase
          Period left: 0 seconds
Index 2   Feature: lanbase
          Period left: Life time
          License Type: Permanent
          License State: Active, In Use
          License Count: Non-Counted
          License Priority: Medium
Index 3   Feature: internal_service
          Period left: 0 seconds

Also I read Licensing Deployment Guide and there was very interesting infoirmation:

User will be notified of the impending license expiry before it expires. After the evaluation license expires, the system continues to run at that license level. However, syslog messages indicating the expired license are continuously displayed on the console, at an interval of one every five minutes.
If for any reason the system reloads and the "license boot level ipbase | entservices" IOS CLI is saved as part of startup-configuration, the system overrides the base license, and continues to boot in the license level specified in the IOS CLI, even though it is expired. This behavior might be changed in future when licenses will be enforced.

Does it mean that if I save this line to configuration license boot level ipbase | entservices, I will have working perpetual Enterprise License but with some warnings in syslog?

Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could post and accept your own answer. — Ron Maupin, Jan 03 '21 at 19:31

Mike Pennington · Answer 1 · 2013-10-17T15:03:23.823

Does it mean that if I save this line to configuration license boot level ipbase | entservices, I will have working perpetual Enterprise License but with some warnings in syslog?

You will get the entservices features for free "today", as long as you're willing to ignore the syslog messages. At some IOS in the future, they might start enforcing licensing levels, so just don't depend on this.

Essentially you're taking a calculated risk by not planning to buy the licenses today. Perhaps just a scare tactic by Cisco to increase their revenue, but I am seeing a general trend by Cisco to enforce more restrictions around what you can use / download from CCO without a valid license. If it was me, I'd just ask your boss to get the licenses you need...

FYI... License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted means you aren't really using the entservices features anyway because you haven't accepted the entservices EULA.

Catalyst 4500R+E, Sup7L-E Strange License Management

1 Answers1