4.6  User counter

This chapter provides a detailed description on how WinRoute checks whether number of licensed users has not been exceeded.

The WinRoute license does not limit number of user accounts. Number of user accounts does not affect number of licensed users.

Warning

The following description is only a technical hint that may be used for troubleshooting. License policy must be borne in mind when deciding for a license purchase — see chapter 4.1  License types and number of users!

The license counter works as follows:

Start WinRoute

Upon WinRoute is started, the table of clients include the firewall only. Number of used licenses is zero.

Note: Table of clients is displayed in the Active Hosts section in the Administration Console — see chapter 19.1  Active hosts and connected users.

License counter

Whenever a communication of any WinRoute's client is detected, the IP address is used to identify whether a record does already exist in the table of clients. If not, a new record including the IP address is added to the table and the number of licenses is raised by 1.

The following items are considered as clients:

  1. All hosts from which users are connected to the firewall

  2. All clients of the WinRoute's proxy server (see chapter 8.4  Proxy server)

  3. All local hosts communication of which is routed between Internet interfaces and WinRoute's local interfaces. The following items belong to this group:

    • Each host which is connected to the Internet while no user is authenticated from the host,

    • All local servers mapped from the Internet,

    • All VPN clients connected to the local network from the Internet.

Licenses are not limited by:

  • DNS requests handled by the DNS plug-in (Warning: If clients use a DNS server located outside the local network, such communication is considered as communication with the Internet),

  • DHCP traffic (using either the WinRoute's DHCP server or another DHCP server installed on the WinRoute host),

  • Local communication between the firewall (e.g. access to shared disks) and hosts from which no user is connected to the firewall.

License release

Idleness time (i.e. time for which no packet with a corresponding IP address meeting all conditions is detected) is monitored for each record in the table of clients. If the idleness time of a client reaches 15 minutes, the corresponding record is removed from the table and the number of licenses is decreased by 1. Released license can be used by another host.