Managing Licenses

As mentioned in Chapter 3, "Hardware Overview," the security appliance controls security and networking features through the use of a license key. The information of the currently installed license key can be obtained by issuing the show version command. This command also displays other system information, such as:

• The current version and the location of the system image

• The ASDM version, if installed

• The security appliance uptime

• The security appliance hardware model number, including the memory and flash information

• The physical interface and the associated IRQs (Interrupt Requests)

• The current features that are active on the security appliance

• The license information

• The serial number of the security appliance

• Configuration register setting

• Information on last configuration modification

Example 4-2 shows the output of show version, which has a VPN Plus-based license key installed.

Example 4-2. Output of show version

Chicago> show version



Cisco ASA Software Version 7.0(1)

Device Manager Version 5.0(1)



Compiled on Thu 31-Mar-05 14:37 by builders

System image file is "disk0:/ASA701.bin"

Config file at boot was "startup-config"



Chicago up 8 hours 32 mins



Hardware:   ASA5540, 1024 MB RAM, CPU Pentium 4 2000 MHz

Internal ATA Compact Flash, 63MB

BIOS Flash M50FW016 @ 0xffe00000, 2048KB



Encryption hardware device : Cisco ASA-55x0 on-board accelerator (revision 0x0)

                             Boot microcode   : ?CNlite-MC-Boot-Cisco-1.2

                             SSL/IKE microcode: ?CNlite-MC-IPSEC-Admin-3.03

                             IPSec microcode  : ?CNlite-MC-IPSECm-MAIN-2.03

0: Ext: GigabitEthernet0/0   : media index  0: irq 9

1: Ext: GigabitEthernet0/1   : media index  1: irq 9

2: Ext: GigabitEthernet0/2   : media index  2: irq 9

3: Ext: GigabitEthernet0/3   : media index  3: irq 9

4: Ext: Management0/0        : media index  0: irq 11

5: Int: Not licensed         : media index  4: irq 11

6: Int: Not licensed         : media index  1: irq 5



License Features for this Platform:

Maximum Physical Interfaces : Unlimited

Maximum VLANs               : 100

Inside Hosts                : Unlimited

Failover                    : Active/Active

VPN-DES                     : Enabled

VPN-3DES-AES                : Enabled

Security Contexts           : 20

GTP/GPRS                    : Enabled

VPN Peers                   : 2000



This machine has a Plus license.



Serial Number: JABXXXXXXXX

Running Activation Key: 0xXXXXXXXX 0xXXXXXXXX 0xXXXXXXXX 0xXXXXXXXX 0xXXXXXXXX

Configuration register is 0x1

Configuration last modified by enable_15 at 22:11:22.123 UTC Fri Aug 1 2005

In Example 4-2, the security appliance is running a system image of 7.0(1) with the ASDM image of 5.0(1). The hardware model is ASA5540 running the Plus license. The serial number and the license activation key are masked to protect the identity of this system. The configuration register is set to 0x1, which instructs the security appliance to load the image from flash. The configuration register is discussed later in this chapter, in the section "Configuring the Password Recovery Process."

You can change the installed license key by using the activation-key command followed by the five-tuple key, as shown in Example 4-3. Once the new activation key is entered, the security appliance shows the features set activated by the new license key. In this example, a VPN premium license key is installed.

Example 4-3. Changing the Activation Key

Chicago# activation-key 0x11223344 0x55667788 0x9900aabb 0xccddeeff 0x01234567



Licensed features for this platform:

Maximum Physical Interfaces : Unlimited

Maximum VLANs               : 100

Inside Hosts                : Unlimited

Failover                    : Active/Active

VPN-DES                     : Enabled

VPN-3DES-AES                : Enabled

Security Contexts           : 50

GTP/GPRS                    : Disabled

VPN Peers                   : 5000

This machine has a VPN Premium license.



Both running and flash activation keys were updated with the requested key.