Indigo 7.1 License Questions

Posted on
Thu Nov 02, 2017 8:47 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

durosity wrote:
Also you don't have a baseme... oh.


Like giving candy to a baby...

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Fri Nov 03, 2017 5:43 am
IndigoSam offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

roussell wrote:
I’ve been playing with various active/active and active/passive installations to design a highly-available, home automation (HAHA??) system for our next home.

It would be nice if there was a way to have a single license (subscription?) assigned to both an active and backup installation, with the understanding/restriction that only one instance could be active serving requests, processing rules at one time. I realize this could be accomplished now by manually removing the subscription assignment from server A and re-assigning to server B, but that’s no fun. An automated way of that happening when A dies and B takes over (or vice versa) would kick ass, at least to me.

Limited runtime of the backup, or more phone-home connections to ensure that there is only one active connection would be required I suppose (and fine with me). In the end this could be something that only I have an interest in so may not be worth your effort.

Indigo software still represents the smallest investment in HA at my house, so if you guys don’t come up with a way to have a 2nd backup/mostly-inactive installation, then it’s on me to buy a 2nd subscription; which -while not desirable- is still a pretty cheap investment in comparison to my total HA footprint.


I'm curious about where your thinking go to on this.

When we consider HA/HA there are actually five main parts of the top of my head:
    The software that is reacting to events (such as sensors and time) and raises events, in our case Indigo
    The compute node the above is running on
    The storage to hold the OS and the configuration for Indigo
    The Z Wave network itself
    The various devices that are on the Z-Wave network

To have full HA then all of the above would need to be replicated. Then we need to know when a node has failed and to activate the DR node, which is additional monitoring hardware or they are all VMs with the VM hosting software providing the same service. In addition the configuration data for Indigo needs to be replicated between node 1 and node 2. Speeding up the process of 'noticing node 1 is down and activating node 2' adds a lot of cost.

Let's assume then that we don't want to double up the Z-Wave stick and all of the devices it is connected to.

So what are the scenarios?

I think storage (in the home) is pretty straight forward. A Carbon Copy clone to another internal/external hard disk would allow a restoration of service. It would be the same machine, so not a license problem. It would also need a (likely hard) reboot without some external device doing some form of heartbeat monitoring and power cycling.

If the Mac itself dies then we need another Mac with our current Indigo configuration on it. That means another license, but it also means the Indigo Server on that Mac is not running normally. Otherwise Indigo will be throwing out a lot of errors about lack of Z-Wave stick plus replicating the data may confuse it (or be impossible if database tables are locked).
So, we have a second Mac with licensed Indigo, not running, and something replicating the configuration data across.
We would still need something to sense that Mac 1 has gone down and start the Indigo Server on Mac 2, but we have a problem in that the Z-Wave stick is still in Mac 1.

This is where I'm not clear on things and I'm not sure if the technology has moved on yet. Before we could only have devices included on one network, i.e. one Z-Wave stick. I believe more controllers can be added, but they cannot include (only the master can) and they act like relays. I'm not sure if a second Z-Wave stick can automatically become the master if the first drops off the network?

So the license cost really needs to be compared to the overall cost of having another Mac, potentially another Z-Wave stick and something to automatically switch between nodes, as well as a data config cloner of some sort. This verses the speed of bring the service back up manually from a back up disk on a new Mac and how long it would take to contact Matt/Jay and get the license moved over.

This really comes down to: do we want Highly Available or just Available (Recoverable)?

Sam.

Posted on
Sun Nov 19, 2017 1:17 pm
Jann offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

I'm gonna add my voice here to those against this "We require login" type of system(s).
I have NO problem running one server/license/home. I'm frustrated with the "Adobe/Microsoft does it, so why shouldn't we?" argument. You are NOT Adobe and/or Microsoft.
I pay for my license. I don't want "We require you to login and authorize this computer!" and the "Phoning home to activate a computer" thing. Why isn't the "license key" enough? Do it behind the scenes. Send my license key to the server, if there are more than one servers running it, give an error. If the server that WAS a duplicate last signed in over X hours ago, then mark the newest one as active and revoke the old one...thus shutting down the other server. Why require it to be linked to an account (of which I don't know what login is required... is it the forums login, is it the login for somewhere else that I don't remember creating it? )
This also brings up security? How are you storing our credentials? In the MacOS keychain? I would hope so.
I don't want to keep entering a login for software I've (per the instructions) bought and am in compliance with - and no, it doesn't matter if it's only once. If that were true, a license key WOULD be enough for that ONE time per system. I don't wanna have to go to a company that has no telephone customer service - and trust that if i have an issue, it'll be dealt with - especially when indigo handles the security for my property, locks, cameras, etc! What happens at 3am when it doesn't work because I either forgot my login or there's a server issue on your side?
Frustrated! Really frustrated. Also frustrated that this was foisted on me via a "dot" release - that normally are NOT feature releases - but are bug releases.
I know you've made the decision and you won't change, but as a developer I've seen how making people mad - by trying to crack down on (what amounts to) piracy - can go wrong.

Posted on
Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:25 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

You are not understanding how the license model works.

Jann wrote:
...I don't know what login is required... is it the forums login, is it the login for somewhere else that I don't remember creating it?

It is your Indigo Account, which uses the same credentials you use to login here.

Jann wrote:
This also brings up security? How are you storing our credentials? In the MacOS keychain? I would hope so.

The credential saved can only be used to validate your license. It cannot change/access credit card information, control your Indigo Server, etc.

Jann wrote:
I don't want to keep entering a login for software I've (per the instructions) bought and am in compliance with - and no, it doesn't matter if it's only once.

Most users find it easier to login a single time, then to enter a long registration code for each major release.

Jann wrote:
especially when indigo handles the security for my property, locks, cameras, etc!

The login information to authenticate your license, which is your Indigo Account, is totally unrelated to the login credentials to access your Indigo Server. The latter is what you define in the Start Local Server dialog in Indigo on your Mac. We never have access nor do we store those credentials – they only reside on your Mac. Again, totally unrelated to your Indigo Account credentials.

Jann wrote:
What happens at 3am when it doesn't work because I either forgot my login or there's a server issue on your side?

It doesn't work that way. Once you have activated Indigo on your Mac (yes, by entering your Indigo Account credentials once) you do not have to enter them again. If our server is down in the future then your already activated Indigo Server will continue to run. That was an essential requirement for our licensing system.

Jann wrote:
Also frustrated that this was foisted on me via a "dot" release - that normally are NOT feature releases - but are bug releases.

Dot releases (7.1, 7.2, 7.3) include new features. Bug fix releases (7.1.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.3, 7.1.4) sometimes include minor new features. Regardless, this change was in a dot release not a bug fix release.

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Posted on
Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:53 pm
Jann offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

lanbrown wrote:
Jann wrote:
Frustrated! Really frustrated. Also frustrated that this was foisted on me via a "dot" release - that normally are NOT feature releases - but are bug releases.


Better tell that to Apple as they've been at 10.x for over 16 years.


*Obviously* I meant a dot-dot release... :lol:

Posted on
Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:44 pm
EricMcM offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

It looks like this thread died in November, but I don't see a newer one or a resolution, so I'll attempt to wake it up a bit.

I missed this issue when the licensing and activation model changed. I'm not a big fan of subscription licensing, but I can live with it so I switched when it was necessary for upgrades. I discovered the issue when the server I run Indigo on died. This server isn't HA, but it does have a live backup so I can get going reasonably quickly if things go south. This worked fine for the many services and programs that are running on it (and now are running on a spare computer while the original is being repaired), with the exception of Indigo. Indigo doesn't work anymore, and this apparently requires manual intervention from domotics?

This sort of extremely restrictive license really only works if there is an easy and rapid way (web without requiring someone on the vendor side to push a button for instance) to move a license. Is there another way to resolve this other than the webform for a technical request? I'm hoping I've missed something here and this is not as bad as it seems.

Posted on
Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:28 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

EricMcM wrote:
Indigo doesn't work anymore, and this apparently requires manual intervention from domotics?

Yes, if your license isn't (or cannot in this case) be deactivated via Indigo's License Details window then we have to manually deactivate it on the server after we receive a request to do so.

That said, we tend to be very responsive for such requests, prioritizing them over other support inquiries. Thus far we haven't had any complaints about excessive downtime because of the process. In that light, we have manually deactivated the license for your account so you can now activate it on the replacement/spare Mac.

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Posted on
Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:43 pm
EricMcM offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

Thanks Matt!

I would still suggest a more automated way so it could be done in seconds instead of tens of minutes. Things don't always break at convenient times. Also, even when moving an install without the catastrophe, you have to remember to do this step first or will have to bring the old system back up, which could take some time. I appreciate you clearing it quickly, but I would still tick the box for at least one complaint :-)

Posted on
Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:18 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

after a restart on my mac client I am getting
Screen Shot 2018-03-11 at 16.16.52.png
Screen Shot 2018-03-11 at 16.16.52.png (93.66 KiB) Viewed 2705 times
every time I start indigo. clicking on later makes it got away.
and indigo connects properly to the indigo server. My license seems to be ok - see bottom of screen copy

??

Karl

Posted on
Sun Mar 11, 2018 4:34 pm
roussell offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

kw123 wrote:
after a restart on my mac client I am getting
Screen Shot 2018-03-11 at 16.16.52.png
every time I start indigo. clicking on later makes it got away.
and indigo connects properly to the indigo server. My license seems to be ok - see bottom of screen copy

??

Karl


I’m getting the same thing. Just noticed it today but not sure how long it’s been there as I don’t look at the server that often.

Terry


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Posted on
Sun Mar 11, 2018 4:52 pm
jalves offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

I've got that too. Appeared in the last day or two.

I entered my credentials and it went away.

Running Indigo 2023.2 on a 24" iMac M1), OS X 14.4
Jeff

Posted on
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:57 pm
kw123 offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

tried to enter my license key .. as usual I can't find my credentials

had an old version from 2013 and from July 2016 .. and from the indigo web site / my login license.. ==>> rejected

still works though


Karl

Posted on
Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:37 am
durosity offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

This also came up on mine but logged in successfully and it disapeared. However it is a little disconcerting this might've happened when my internet connection was down or i was away for a couple of weeks, I'm wondering how long the server would keep running for before it shut itself down. Would be nice if it actually said on the dialogue box. And how often does the software need to connect to Indigo Domos servers to keep itself active?

Computer says no.

Posted on
Mon Mar 12, 2018 7:22 am
kw123 offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

I am now getting the prompt regularly on the indigo server. clicking on " not now " makes it go away .

Posted on
Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:58 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Indigo 7.1 License Questions

Yes, we're looking into it.

Note: Indigo does not need to continuously connect once activated (but it does ping periodically) - if Indigo can't connect to our backend servers it will continue to run fine. So even if this dialog is open it will still continue to run correctly. Logging in should make the recurring popup go away for a while, but something does appear to be making it popup again at a later date, and that's what we're investigating.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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