Important: Upgrade your DirectAdmin to ensure compatibility with our new licensing system

[brinkie]

The fact we are giving extra notice (account portal, forum, in-panel) is a further courtesy.

I understand this is probably very frustrating for you because there will probably more complaints coming in soon.

Anyway, I did get notices that my OS (debian 8) on some machines was EOL (no surprise, I knew that) but as most people, I guess, hardly ever check the DA licenses at the directadmin-website it is, at least to me, not clear what machines/licenses are going to be in trouble if you look at the licenses. Except for the notice at the top pointing to the forum.

It's also not marked at the licenses or something like that in the DA-panel on the servers itself? It also doesn't show a notice. I personally noticed it by accident when I wanted to update DA on machines, noticing it was still running 1.62 (some time ago) and the update to 1.63.x failed but since I'm already in the process moving the websites on them to a new machine didn't bother about the old DA-version.

So yeah, I can understand some people are not all that pleasantly surprised. Especially if you have a "lifetime license" you might not expect it to expire one day because of a change in the licensing system..

Did you try manual update ?
Updating DirectAdmin | Directadmin Docs

This did work. Had a machine that I will pull offline so that was a good testing environment. Did update to Debian 9 first.

 

[smtalk]

So we are facing an issue on multiple directadmin servers probably due to this change.
As of today we are getting the following message when we try to login to directadmin:

"

License check failure See the Debug Guide​

Reason: transient licence check failure: too many requests, try again later
Current Server Time: Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:01:09 CET
"

Servers are Debian 10
Today updated to the latest stable directadmin version via CLI, worked fine
Manually did a getLicense the old way and the new way using the key and that was a "Success!!" then restarted directadmin
Also tried resetting the key in the directadmin portal and re-getting the license

Basically we tried everything we can think of but we keep ketting the same error message and i'm having a feeling we are not alone since this hits multiple directadmin servers we have...
Is the license server overloaded or something?

It likely got rate-limited due to too many requests to the licensing server. Was DirectAdmin restarted very frequently on that box? I'd suggest opening a support ticket if you aren't sure what has caused the problem.

 

[Richard G]

Especially if you have a "lifetime license" you might not expect it to expire one day because of a change in the licensing system..

Where did you get the idea a lifetime license would expire? Because they won't, at least not with the licensing system change. It's the OS that expires which at a certain point with the new licensing system makes the license also not work anymore.
But I get what you mean. Often with software license, they keep working on older systems, but are only not supported anymore. True that is a bit of a difference. Not sure on how this is with other comparable panel licenses.

 

[brinkie]

It's the OS that expires which at a certain point with the new licensing system makes the license also not work anymore.

Which will cause the license to expire unless you do an OS upgrade or migrate to another server. I understand. I do understand the root cause very well. I understand where DA is coming from and their reasoning in this.

However, I have been working for 30 years in ICT for various companies and the Dutch government and as an independent entrepreneur and have never seen this happen before. If an OS expires, yeah, support issues will arise. Security issues. But a license can't expire. That's a no-go. People should be able to keep using the software they pay for/paid for. They are counting on that.

People are now suddenly being forced to do server migrations and OS upgrades head over heels. Some of them probably don't even know and will, in some time, be faced with a VPS or dedicated server that has a malfunctioning DA installation. With all its consequences. Like: their backups won't be generated and probably a lot of other issues.

I have, for example, one client that has an old Debian server with a Magento system, and a few other websites, linked to an ERP.. they will have the migration ready no earlier than April or May. If they are lucky. They've been working on that project for a year now. I warned them many times (because of outdated hardware and software) but there are all kinds of dependencies.

Again -- I do understand where DA is coming from, and my client can probably work around it as well as I can. But as far as I'm concerned: this is IMHO not the way to do it.

Sorry for the rant but I think I'm perhaps even one of the lucky ones ..

-- Off the soapbox --

 

[pat0]

@Richard G A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away Directadmin lifetime licenses were really "lifetime" but now they are portioned to 30 days. And there's main problem with licensing system change and EOL systems which will not be able to use them.
Another thing is that CentOS 6 has cheap extended support available (ELS) until 2024 and I'm using it. But as I unterstand DA is also dropping support for 6.x this month.

 

[Richard G]

But a license can't expire.

I know where you're coming from and as said, I understand that you expect a license to keep working without support, which is indeed a reasonable thought.
However lifetime is not like "until I die" lifetime as I also had to experience with a lifetime vBulletin license. It was lifetime until vB declared it end of life. With DA licenses, they are still lifetime, however, there is an issue now that they don't support old OS versions anymore. So I do understand the issue.

Directadmin lifetime licenses were really "lifetime" but now they are portioned to 30 days.

I came from that galaxy far, far away a long time ago. And the lifetime licenses are still lifetime and not portioned to 30 days.
What you mean is that lifetime licenses are not sold anymore, which is correct. Which has also been the case by other panels, which even declared those lifetime licenses end of life, so totally unusable (like cPanel). Something DA did not.

It seems the DA license was abused a lot so it's not that odd they introduced a new licensing check system. Centos 6 can still be used with DA as far as I know. Maybe they are dropping support for Centos 6, wich is quite normal. Extended support well.... for the happy few like Extended Windows 7 support had. But you can still use your DA version on Centos 6, you just don't get updates anymore.

Especially for hosting business, things should be kept secure and up to date. We are 2 main versions further than Centos 6 at this time. You can't expect a panel to support that forever.

To compare things. Cpanel stopped support for Centos 6 november 2020. No matter who has bought extended support and that is a much more expensive portal. So it's unrealistich to demand DA to keep it longer. It's more realistic to get up to date like you should as a hoster.

 

[pat0]

Ok, but I chose Directadmin long time ago because it was not a cPanel in terms of UI, development, user support, prices etc .
As it comes to hosting. Many users still demand PHP 5.x, MySQL 5.5 and that old types of stuff. And you can still have this things patched by Cloudlinux for example. I wouldn't object if DA also did some additional EOL extra paid support for old licenses/systems.
In the other hand, I don't see real benefit of new license system in terms of abuse.

 

[Richard G]

I choose DA for the same reason as you.
As for hosting, I know what you're saying but I have my own opion about that. The more we keep users letting use old crap, the more special stuff, extendend support and ancient stuff we will have to keep running. Teach/force the users. If they can't use their ancient stuff anywhere anymore they will update. It's only a money question. And if something happens, you as hoster are responsible, at least in Europe, by the AVG because you keep running ancient stuff if Cloudlinux is not used or other security updates aren't made to older php and mysql versions.

I understand the part with Cloudlinux, but that is a 3rd party and I don't think it's fair to demand DA to keep that support up, while even CP stopped it 2 years ago (well in fact almost 1,5 year). And they support Cloudlinux too!
So it's more fair to compare to others panels with this too imho.

I wouldn't object if DA also did some additional EOL extra paid support for old licenses/systems.

Maybe that is a good option. That is a reasonable idea for the happy few which want to keep running EOL stuff.
You could ask DA for a future like that or maybe start a suggestion in the feedback forum, because I'm sure there might be more which would be interested in such option.

As for the benefit in terms of abuse.... well... you might not see it, but it is there.
Anyway, I hope for you guys DA is prepared to create some special payment option to keep old licenses active on EOL OS so DA can keep working.
But to also keep old php and mysql etc. up to date, well... I really doubt they will do that part, but one never nows.

 

[adam12]

Manually updating on a CentOS 6 machine as of today will break due to the directadmin binary being too new for the glibc version (I suspect).

Do we know of any workarounds?

 

[LawsHosting]

Ok, but I chose Directadmin long time ago because it was not a cPanel in terms of UI.

So did I......but jump 10 years later, Evolution was born, cPanel raised their prices, the clients jumped ship over here and badgered JBMC to mimic
DA to look like cPanel.

 

[smtalk]

Manually updating on a CentOS 6 machine as of today will break due to the directadmin binary being too new for the glibc version (I suspect).

Do we know of any workarounds?

No, current one works just fine.

 

[adam12]

No, current one works just fine.

I'm guessing you're right. This machine is 32-bit and I didn't realize it until after the fact. I guess we'll see if there's an up to date 32-bit static build or not

 

[Richard G]

and badgered JBMC to mimic
DA to look like cPanel.

No because only Icon grid looks like cpanel, rest doesn't and you can always still use Enhanced skin which still looks DA.

 

[LawsHosting]

and you can always still use Enhanced skin which still looks DA.

Try creating a wildcard SSL Cert with LEGO under Enhanced and reevaluate your reply

 

[Richard G]

Oh Lego. I don't use lego, we always use our own nameservers as professional hosters do.
Anyawy, that has nothing to do with your statement that the new layout of DA looks like cPanel which is were I was responding to.

 

[LawsHosting]

Oh Lego. I don't use lego, we always use our own nameservers as professional hosters do.
Anyawy, that has nothing to do with your statement that the new layout of DA looks like cPanel which is were I was responding to.

I still stand by my statement, looks a lot like cPanel, but hey, I don't have to keep logging in on lots of servers, just one now.

And FYI, I also used my own nameservers, but the A DNS records via Cloudflare......... Besides, you saying, using Cloudflare as a DNS/Proxy isn't professional?

 

[Richard G]

I still stand by my statement, looks a lot like cPanel,

I still don't understand why as only the grid display looks like CP and all the rest of Evo doesn't. However also Plesk uses grid display, seems customers like it. I like Enhanced more though.

using Cloudflare as a DNS/Proxy isn't professional?

No I was just teasing and I didn't mention Cloudflare anywhere. Cloudflare is one of the few exceptions anyway.

 

[pat0]

Be aware that despite of message in client panel stating that licensing system still operates in "hybrid mode" newly downloaded licenses stopped working on DA <1.63.4. So if you have currently downloaded license active for 5 days for example this is your last days to migrate.
The problem also occurs on CentOS6 32 bit, although it is still selectable in the license panel and is not marked red (EOL) because last version for this system is 1.62.something.
This is the first time I see a "lifetime" license stop working this way.

 

[royhk]

Same here, the license stopped and show

License has expired​

We have a very few old OS and are planning to migrate those accounts. This make us a chaos even thought we are willing to migrate the OS.

Can DA offer a paid solution for solve the problem ? Or Can we have 1-2 more months for DA to work ?


Please help.

 

[Blieb]

Same here, the license stopped and show

License has expired​

We have a very few old OS and are planning to migrate those accounts. This make us a chaos even thought we are willing to migrate the OS.

Can DA offer a paid solution for solve the problem ? Or Can we have 1-2 more months for DA to work ?


Please help.

I think you can still start making DA backups via comandline and restore it on a new server