Configuring Asta Licence Manager security options

You use the Security tab of the Asta Licence Manager to specify:

Whether individual users can loan or move licences from licence servers to other computers. If you allow users to transfer licences from a licence server, they can use the Loan Licence Wizard and Move Licence Wizard within their client applications to transfer licences away from the licence server onto other computers.
Whether to back up your historical licence data - and the location in which to back it up.

To specify whether individual users can transfer licences from a licence server:

Enter the name of the computer on which the licence server is installed in the Server name field. Alternatively, click Browse to search the network for a licence server.
Click Get current status to view whether users can currently transfer licences away from the selected licence server.
Select the Allow individual users to transfer licences from an Asta licence server check box to enable users to transfer licences away from the selected server, or clear the check box to restrict this right.
Click Apply.

Transferring a licence away from a licence server onto an individual computer means that there is one less licence available to be shared out between your users on the licence server. Enabling users to do this could potentially result in a less controlled distribution of your purchased licences than is desirable, as you have no control over what individual users are doing with the licences on the licence server. Therefore, you may want to prevent users from doing this. If you prevent individual users from transferring licences away from a licence server, you can still do this yourself, using the Transfer tab of the Asta Licence Manager.

To specify whether to back up your historical licence data - and the location in which to back it up:

Enter the name of the computer on which the licence server is installed in the Server name field. Alternatively, click Browse to search the network for a licence server.
Select the Save Licence Server history data to a backup location check box to indicate that you want to back up your historical licence data, or clear the check to indicate that you do not want to back it up.

Backing up your historical licence data is highly recommended, as it means that information about the Elecosoft licences you hold will be available to Elecosoft's Technical Support department in the event of the computer on which the Asta licence server is installed suffering a catastrophic breakdown.
If you have chosen to back up your historical licence data, enter the location in which to back it up in the field beneath the check box, or click Browse to search the network for the location in which to back up the information. The data is backed up into the specified location in a file called history.log.

You can specify a location by giving either a mapped drive (for example T:\Foldername) or by giving the location's full network path (for example \\Servername\Foldername). If you specify the location by giving a mapped drive, note that the same drive must be mapped to the same letter on the computer on which Asta Licence Manager is installed and on the computer on which the licence server is installed.
Click Apply. If you have specified an invalid location, a warning message appears; if this happens, specify a different location and click Apply again.

Note that if you have not installed the licence server as a service, it is only possible to specify a local hard drive as the back up location.