A.P. Lawrence

This article is from a FAQ concerning SCO operating systems. While some of the information may be applicable to any OS, or any Unix or Linux OS, it may be specific to SCO Xenix, Open Desktop or Openserver.

There is lots of Linux, Mac OS X and general Unix info elsewhere on this site: Search this site is the best way to find anything.

OSR5 FAQ

I'm having trouble with licensing and registration

First off, you may have up to three difference license number/activation key combinations to use. Please read the documentation and the COLA (Certificate Of License and Authenticity) card(s) carefully. If you are upgrading from an old release of an SCO product, you will be asked not only to type in your new SNAK (Serial Number and Activation Key), but also the old SNAK from your old release. Additionally, if you are upgrading to the Enterprise system, you must first install and license the Host system, and then perform an upgrade to Enterprise.

Licensing and registration is a two-step process. The first step involves licensing, and this takes place when you enter the SNAK from your COLA. You then fill in a form, included with your software, and send it to SCO in any of a number of ways. SCO sends you a registration key, which you enter to complete the registration process. The registration key is dependent both on your serial number and on a number generated by the system when you install it; this latter half means that should you have to reinstall, you will need to re-register your system.

One big problem many people have had is that in the case of an Enterprise upgrade, you must register the Host system before you can register the Enterprise system. If you do not, then you may end up with a system which will appear to accept your registration but which will subsequently complain that it has not been registered, and there is no elegant way out of this situation; SCO recommends reinstalling to cure this. SCO is working on a cure for this but it is not ready yet and it will probably not be able to rescue systems which have already experienced this problem.

If you need to do an upgrade or install and cannot wait for the registration information to be sent back to you, there is a procedure you can follow to avoid this problem. Install the Host system, and then install the Enterprise system. Send SCO the registration information for _both_ systems. When you receive your registration keys, perform the following steps:

1. Take the system to single-user (maintenance) mode
2. Remove the Enterprise license. This does not mean removing the software - just the license.
3. Register the Host system license.
4. Register the Enterprise system license.
5. Shut the system down (haltsys) - do not bring it back up to multi-user mode without shutting down first

If you find yourself unregistering/unlicensing parts of your system and you have a PANIC, it's possible that you may have upset the kernel streams linker module. Try booting with the boot string defbootstr ksl.disable; if that gets the system running, finish up your licensing and registration work and then reboot with your usual boot string.

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