Virtual RouterOS and license after copying virtual .VDI
If I have virtual RouterOS - want it for dude and bandwitch tests. How it is with license. Is it connected to .vdi? Because sometimes it happened that I just need to copy .vdi to other machine (after hardware failure, reinstall). What happens with license? Is it lost or it is still working?
Re: Virtual RouterOS and license after copying virtual .VDI
If you have x86 RouterOS (not CHR), license is tied to disk and will work if you move it somewhere else, as long at the disk does not change.
There's a small catch, not only the content must stay the same, but also the hardware, i.e. how the disk reports itself. License is for Software ID and that's computed from physical properties of disk (I think model and serial number, but I'm not completely sure) and some data written on disk. It was made for physical devices, where it worked as copy protection, because you can't create 100% clone of physical harddisk (including HW serial number and everything).
With virtual machines, you don't usually need to worry about it, because virtual disk reports itself as the same hardware. But you can't e.g. move .vmdk with RouterOS from VMware to VirtualBox, because even though .vmdk is supported by VirtualBox, it presents disk to system with different identification than VMware and it changes Software ID. It can be fixed by setting disk's properties to what original VM in VMware had. But if you're going to use the same product, there shouldn't be any problem at all.
There's a small catch, not only the content must stay the same, but also the hardware, i.e. how the disk reports itself. License is for Software ID and that's computed from physical properties of disk (I think model and serial number, but I'm not completely sure) and some data written on disk. It was made for physical devices, where it worked as copy protection, because you can't create 100% clone of physical harddisk (including HW serial number and everything).
With virtual machines, you don't usually need to worry about it, because virtual disk reports itself as the same hardware. But you can't e.g. move .vmdk with RouterOS from VMware to VirtualBox, because even though .vmdk is supported by VirtualBox, it presents disk to system with different identification than VMware and it changes Software ID. It can be fixed by setting disk's properties to what original VM in VMware had. But if you're going to use the same product, there shouldn't be any problem at all.