"license is expired"

S

Strator

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Hi all,

I'm having a shitty day in front of the computer. Important mails not arriving, can't reach my websites, thought its my network card - later figuring out that my server is pretty much unreachable, except for the tiny console window my host offers.

Had the help ticket to pay my host serious money to get me back up running already typed, when I noticed this:

# da build rewrite_confs

license is expired, task is added to the queue file to be executed later
Installation of ModSecurity Rule Set has been finished.
license is expired, task is added to the queue file to be executed later
Using 1.2.3.4 for your server IP
license is expired, task is added to the queue file to be executed later
Restarting nginx.
Job for nginx.service failed because the control process exited with error code.


Can somebody help me make sense of this? Is this about my Directadmin license? Does it mean it has been revoked?

Thanks!
 
Strator said:
Does it mean it has been revoked?
Click to expand...
There are multiple options which are possible with this notice. Depends on which kind of license you have. Most likely not revoked.
Is it only "license expired"? Or do you see another notice or additional info when calling the login panel with https://yourdomain.com:2222 or http://1.2.3.4:2222 in your browser?

In most cases the reason is that your server can not connect (anymore) with the Directadmin licensing serves.
Execute this command and see if you see errors:
journalctl -u directadmin

If no errors, try if this works:
Code: 
cd /usr/local/directadmin/scripts
./getLicense.sh auto
systemctl restart directadmin
this would proove your server can connect to the licensing server if this works.

Additional info can be found here: https://docs.directadmin.com/directadmin/general-usage/licensing.html#license-expired
 
Like I said the server is unreachable except for the tiny keyhole through the hosts console. I cannot even view the error messages properly because the console window is so tiny that it's all cut off.

I already tried to restart directadmin, seems like it never happens. Not sure from your replies if an expired license might cause these issues, or if it's more likely that the issues (connectivity, firewall, whatever) are what causes the error message in the first place.

Currently on my way home will try the advice in a bit.
 
journalctl -u directadmin

-> This gets me a "http: TLS handshake error". I guess this hints at the fact that this is probably not a licensing error but more likely a connection problem?
 
The startips service is down - does that ring any bells? I mean if it does what I suspect it does, it's no wonder that I can't even ssh to my machine using the IP. Not sure which tree to bark up at next, though? Would the service fail because of a perceived license issue? Or would there rather be a perceived license issue due to startips being down and connectivity loss?

It really sucks because I can't do zip at this point. Don't even have access to log files, so it's all a guessing game. Can't access the licensing page either, because the proof value is only available if you have web access in the first place.
 
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Strator said:
probably not a licensing error but more likely a connection problem?
Click to expand...
Yep that looks like it, at least I've seen that happening before on the forums. Because connection means no license verification.
If you know your license key (which you should unless the datacenter installed it for you) then you should be ablel to at least check the license key is valid for sure via the link @zEitEr provided in his reply.

The startips service provides network service for Directadmin. If you have multiple ip's it might be possible the startips service keeps that online for you.

I don't know if you have console access, otherwise you could try to restart the startips service:
service startips restart

And then see if you see an error. I don't think DA would shut down that service but I'm not sure.
Otherwise be sure you see if your network is started and working or start it yourself.

Also check this post: https://forum.directadmin.com/threads/directadmin-web-panel-failed-after-update.64401/#post-334989
 
Sorry, I should have been clearer - by "down" I mean it doesn't start either.

Basically I'm somehow trying to find the cause for a given set of symptoms. A service like startips failing would explain why I can't ssh to the machine. (The latter is a fact and there must be a reason.) If that's what it does - but maybe I am misunderstanding this service.

Btw. sshd is up and running. And firewall isn't the issue.

On the page provided by @zEitEr you need the proof value, which you can only get if you have http access to your Directadmin panel.

curl --location https://www.directadmin.com/clients/my_license_info.php
...gets me a "could not resolve host".

Once again: I don't have access to my server at all. No ssh, no mail, no web. Seems like it's not the firewall (turned it off, and my host tried it as well). Next thing that came to mind is that maybe there's a problem with the IP. Then I discovered the problem with startips so I thought, that must be it. But of course, if startips only affects DA and not the entire server, then it's a false positive.
 
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If your server doesn't have networking functioning DA won't be able to validate the license. Check your network settings are they correct, does it show the link up? Check your networking, can you ping the default gateway by it's IP address? Are your /etc/resolve.conf DNS servers for recursive DNS servers working servers? Disable your firewall just in case. Is there possibly something wrong at your data center for the VM/server? Have you confirm with their staff that your network settings (IP and gateway) are correct?
 
cjd said:
Check your network settings are they correct, does it show the link up?
Click to expand...
Not sure what you mean by this. And how would I find out what my default gateway is?

DNS issues can be ruled out, like I said I can't ssh via IP either. Firewall has been disabled. Server staff/host have checked and they say everything is clean on their end.
 
If you already can’t get with ssh into the machine i don’t think it’s a direct Directadmin issue, is it a dedicated server or a VPS?
 
It's a VPS.

The nightmare is over. As it turns out, the host intervened - they had to manually add my IP to the interface and installed the network scripts package which they say was missing. In the meantime, I cycled through the commands of the past and found a careless "yum update --allowerasing" which I issued back in June (!) to solve some dependency issue - confirmed by "yum history info" that it also removed the "network-scripts" package, but it only kicked in after the server rebooted yesterday. Yikes!

Big thanks for everyone who chimed in!
 
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