License activation and renewal

You can activate and renew your Instana license.

Licensing operations
- Queued Licenses

Licensing operations

The operation consists of reading the sales_key that is defined in the settings.hcl file, downloading the license file from Instana SaaS, and saving it to the license file.

The command requires an internet connection and you can also run the command from a machine that does not have the Instana backend installed.

To download the license on the instana host where the settings.hcl file exists, run the following command:
```
instana license download
```
You can specify a sales key, for example in an air-gapped scenario:
```
instana license download -k <SALES_KEY>
```
To import the downloaded license into your Instana backend, run the following command, which looks for the license in your current folder:
```
instana license import
```
Alternatively, you can specify the license location as follows:
```
instana license import -f <path/to/file>
```
To print the license information, run the following command:
```
instana license verify
```

Queued Licenses

Instana supports queued licenses if you choose to extend your existing license. Simply download and import the new license file by using the commands as previously described.

To verify whether the new license is loaded, run the following command:

instana license verify

The output lists all currently loaded licenses, which are numbered in order of import.

root@selfhosted:~# instana license verify
Verifying local license status ✓

Nr: 1
Valid from: 2021-05-02 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Valid till: 2022-08-31 23:59:59.999 +0000 UTC

Nr: 2
Valid from: 2022-09-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Valid till: 2023-08-31 23:59:59.999 +0000 UTC

The Instana UI will still display a warning about the old license until the new license starts. You don't need to worry if the new license shows in the output after you run the command instana license verify.