Installing CA Plex › Enter the CA License Key › Frequently Asked Questions on CA Licensing (ALP)

Frequently Asked Questions on CA Licensing (ALP)

Q: What is ALP?

A: ALP is the Automated License Program, the newest phase of CA licensing and order fulfillment. Rather than requiring clients to use a client-side application to identify hardware eligible to run CA software and request/create the appropriate license file, ALP products are shipped with a printed certificate representing their license file (based on the product and hardware information recorded in our license database), and are also given the opportunity to get their license keys electronically using our support website.

Q: How can I get my ALP license keys online?

A: You can get ALP keys from http://www.ca.com/support. To log on to the secure area of the website, you need a valid user ID and password.

To get ALP keys

1. Log on to supportconnect using your user ID and password.
2. Click the Licensing link under Downloads on the left pane.

   The CA Licensing page appears.

3. Click the ALP keys link under What’s New to view your ALP keys.

   The ALP Keys page appears.

   Note: You can also install your ALP keys directly to your local machine by clicking the Install button.

Q: Why does CA licensing sometimes install into the Program Files folder and not C:\CA_LIC as it always has?

A: The latest CA licensing installation conforms to the CA installation standard by installing in the C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC folder if no previous C:\CA_LIC licensing folder is found on a machine. If, however, a C:\CA_LIC folder is found on the machine, the new licensing will continue installing into that folder. Licensing packages that follow the installation standard are versions 1.52 and higher.

The following issue may occur when downgrading licensing:

If a 1.52 or higher version of licensing is installed on a machine with no previous licensing installed on it, then an earlier version of licensing is installed (downgrade of licensing), the earlier version automatically installs into the C:\CA_LIC folder, which creates two CA_LIC folders (C:\CA_LIC and C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC). To fix the problem, install the latest posted version of licensing from the Total License Care (TLC) support site. This merges the two folders into C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC. Over time, C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC becomes the folder where licensing is managed.

Q: How do I use the mergeolf utility?

A: Syntax: MERGEOLF -n <new_olf> -c <current_olf> -o <output_olf> -b <backup_olf> -d

Where:

-n: Is the name of the new OLF file to merge

-c: Is the name of the current OLF file to merge
Default: ca.olf

-o: Is the name of the new OLF file to create
Default: ca.olf

-b: Is the name of the backup of the current OLF file
Default: ca.bak

-d: Enables debugging (mergeolf.log)

Example:

MERGEOLF -n ca.no1 -c c:\ca_lic\ca.olf -o c:\ca_lic\ca.olf -b c:\ca_lic\ca.old

Q: What is the correct format of an ALP key?

A: Following is an example of an ALP Execution Key:

ID_1 3991FFEF "Customer Name" Technical Contact Name (As recorded in our database)

ID_2 E4A19DB8 "Company Name"       Company Name
ID_3 C2F2E617 "00000000"           CA Site ID Number
ID_4 9550AD9 "email@domain.com"    Technical Contact Email (As recorded in our database)
SERVER CAI 7152
DAEMON CAI_lic_d/usr/bin
FEATURE 0 CAI_lic_d 1.000 20-APR-2000 0 0CA4D081978DD1BD5C76 "(MODEL) (COMPONENT)" ANY # 0000000-000

The actual encrypted Execution Key is line 7, which is referred to as the FEATURE line, the ID and Server and Daemon lines are header lines that should only appear once in the file, at the beginning. Additional instances of these lines can invalidate your license file.

If you are having problems with your ALP key, verify that the following:

• There are no carriage returns interrupting the FEATURE lines in the ca.olf file.
• There are no blank lines in between the FEATURE lines in the ca.olf file.
• The ID lines of the newly generated ALP Execution Key replace any pre-existing ID lines in the olf.ca file.
• The name of the OLF is ca.olf and does not have an extra extension in the name; for example, ca.olf.txt or ca.olf.olf (This is most common on Windows systems when hide known file extensions is enabled in the Explorer).

Q: When I download certain CA data files and utilities from the support site, they come with an extension of .caz. What is a .caz file?

A: Files downloaded with a .caz extension are compressed with CAZIPXP, available at http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/ca_common_docs/ca_utility_supp.asp. To uncompress the file, use the command: cazipxp.exe -u <filename.caz>, which extracts the compressed files to the local directory.

Q: I have installed my ALP license key and I am receiving the following error:

- CA Licensing -- The license found is inadequate for the Hardware Unit rating of this machine. You might have upgraded the machine and if so, please rerun the appropriate license program to properly license your product

A: Typically, this is due to an invalid or corrupt lic98.cap file: open the lic98.cap file with a text editor, the file should be comprised of a listing of detected model types in the format of:
SYS (detectedmodel) (tier) (checksum)

• If the file is improperly formatted, you can copy the lic98.cap from your installation source or download the latest data files at our support website
• If the lic98.cap file does not exist, you may not have a current ALP license run-time installed. Contact TLC for assistance
• If the lic98.cap exists and appears to be valid, contact TLC for assistance.