Subscription Licensing

LumenVox offers the ability to provide a variety of licenses to requesting clients through an authentication system. This service enables a License Server to compare an inbound license request's username and password credentials against those in the License Server's configuration file. This authentication schema also features the ability to discern different license types and numbers of each.

We use this ability to offer customers our licenses as a monthly subscription service. As long as you have an open Internet connection to your LumenVox Client, you can take advantage of this simple licensing solution. If you are interested in purchasing a subscription to our authentication License Server, please click here.

Customers can also use this ability to offer a similar service to their end users. We have documentation on how to configure your License Server to authenticate inbound requests here.

This page explains how this service works and how to configure your Speech Client to make requests to our Subscription License Server.

How it Works

When the Speech Client makes a request to a remote License Server, it's done via IP. This request can now feature username and password parameters, which the License Server compares to those in its license_authentication.conf file. Each username can be considered an account on the License Server.

In addition to the username and password, the License Server also specifies the type of licenses (Full, Lite, TTS, or AMD), and number of each for any of its authentication accounts. This way, you can dictate what type of licenses, and how many, an account is entitled to.

In most cases, this will happen in a distributed network, or even from the Internet. As such, you'll need to ensure that your firewall is configured to allow TCP traffic to the License Server's port, by default 7569.

Configuration

Our license authentication system is configured in a two-step process. First, the License Server needs to be configured for authentication. We have detailed documentation on that setup here. Second, the Speech Client's configuration file, the client_property.conf, needs to be edited to send the credentials to the License Server. The remainder of this page deals with this configuration.

Once you've completed your installation, you'll need to edit the client_property.conf's LICENSE_SERVERS value, and add the authentication details at the bottom:

The LICENSE_SERVERS value should be set to: license1.lumenvox.com; license2.lumenvox.com; license3.lumenvox.com.
Add the following text to the bottom of the file, where the x's are replaced with the username and password values you use to log into www.LumenVox.com/customers.

[AUTHENTICATION]
AUTHENTICATION_USERNAME=xxxxx
AUTHENTICATION_PASSWORD=xxxxx

If you're a Subscription Licensing customer, are concerned about security and would like to change your credentials, feel free. However, you'll need to let us know so that we can make the matching change on our License Server.

Once you've made these changes, save the client_property.conf file, and restart your client application.

Troubleshooting

If you have purchased a subscription to our hosted License Server and have received the e-mail from us confirming that your account is ready on our License Server, but still having problems, please check the following troubleshooting steps.

Most license request failures will look like this:

License failure. No license server responding at address: 66.192.144.50
...check your license server or settings
OpenPort() failed, errorcode returned -1
LoadVoiceChannel failed, errorcode returned -12
LoadGrammar() failed, errorcode returned 1
ActivateGrammar() failed, errorcode returned -12
count=15, decode returns -12

Check your client_property.conf file - Are you sure that you specified our License Server's IP address (license1.lumenvox.com; license2.lumenvox.com; license3.lumenvox.com)?
Did you add the [AUTHENTICATION] header? – This block of text must be added above the AUTHENTICATION _USERNAME and AUTHENTICATION_PASSWORD text.
Restart the client application – The changes made above will not take unless the client application has been restarted.
Check your firewall settings – In most cases, customers do not realize that their firewall is blocking the requests to our hosted License Server. Make sure that port 7569 is open to TCP traffic.
Try Telnetting – Ping, Traceroute and other ICMP-based attempts will fail, due to restrictions we've set up on our firewall. However, a Telnet connection can be made.
If you're still not able to fetch your license(s), then please e-mail us, and attach your client_property.conf file. We can test the account from a machine external to our network.