Protection Against Cloning

Machine cloning involves copying the entire image of one machine (including your software and its legitimate license) to one or more other machines. With Sentinel LDK, you have the ability to detect probable machine cloning and to disable software that is locked to Sentinel SL keys until you are satisfied that the user has a legitimate license for your software.

Sentinel LDK can detect probable cloning regardless of whether the machine cloned is a physical computer or a virtual machine. (For more information on clone detection, see the Sentinel LDK Software Protection and Licensing Guide)

You specify that you want clone protection to be applied to a Product when you create or modify a Product.

When the Sentinel LDK Run-time detects cloning, it disables the licenses for which clone protection was specified. The end user is unable to log on to the software for which cloned licenses have been detected. The end user must contact your vendor representative and submit a C2V file from the machine on which the cloned license was detected, along with their Product Key, to have the cloned key updated and the Product activated.

Sentinel LDK-EMS provides several types of clone protection schemes.

Platform Default Clone Protection Schemes

You can specify that you want to use the default clone protection schemes defined for the Default Clone Protection Version version selected in the License Security Settings section of the Administration Console. For details, see the Sentinel LDK-EMS Configuration Guide.

Pre-defined Clone Protection Schemes

Sentinel LDK-EMS provides out-of-the-box clone protection schemes that you can choose from. For details, see Creating a Product.

Custom-defined Clone Protection Schemes

You can create custom clone protection schemes for physical and virtual machines, if needed.

For example, suppose the customer uses licensed software in a controlled environment, such as a bank, where high availability is more important than clone protection, and IT controls the employees' machines. You may want to create a custom clone protection scheme that uses only one criterion, such as Machine ID. Similarly, you may decide to define several criteria and specify that only a single criteria needs to match for validation.

Alternatively, if clone protection is of utmost importance, you can create a custom clone protection scheme with multiple criteria. You can then specify that most or all of the criteria need to match for validation to pass.

After you create a custom clone protection scheme, it is available to all products. You can modify the custom scheme, as needed, as long as the scheme is not included in an entitlement. When you modify a custom clone protection scheme, the scheme is modified in all products that include this scheme. You can also delete the custom clone protection scheme if it is no longer needed, as long is it not included in an entitlement or more than one product.

See also:

>Creating a Product

>Deleting a Custom Clone Protection Scheme