zlicenser-server

Server library and vendor backend for the zlicenser licensing framework.

This is the vendor side of the ecosystem. Vendors self-host the server binary to issue and manage licenses for their software. The library crate can also be embedded directly in an existing application if you'd rather not run a separate server process.

The server handles the four-message license exchange protocol, seat enforcement, hardware binding, revocation, grace period tracking, and hardware transfer requests. It comes with a web dashboard for managing products, licenses, and customers without touching the API directly.

What's in this repo

src/                         # library crate source (published to crates.io)
bin/zlicenser-server-bin/    # axum server binary with embedded SvelteKit dashboard
bindings/python/             # PyO3 + maturin
bindings/nodejs/             # napi-rs
bindings/go/                 # CGo + cbindgen
migrations/sqlite/           # SQLite migrations
migrations/postgres/         # PostgreSQL migrations
xtask/                       # build automation
docs/                        # mdBook documentation

The workspace root Cargo.toml is both the workspace manifest and the published library crate. Everything under bin/ and bindings/ is publish = false.

Features

SQLite is fine for most self-hosted setups. Switch to storage-postgres if you need PostgreSQL for scale or to fit into existing infrastructure. The storage-postgres feature uses sqlx's pure-Rust Postgres driver, so there's no libpq system dependency.

Building

Rust toolchain: install via rustup. The rust-toolchain.toml pins to a specific stable version.

Ubuntu

sudo apt install -y libsqlite3-dev python3-dev python3-pip
pip3 install maturin
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y sqlite-devel python3-devel python3-pip
pip3 install maturin
sudo dnf install -y nodejs

SQLite is only needed for the default storage-sqlite feature. Node.js is only needed to build the dashboard frontend and the Node.js bindings. Python deps are only needed for the Python bindings.

Platform

Linux x86_64 only. The client-side components (shim, hardware fingerprinting) depend on Linux kernel interfaces, so the server is only tested and supported on Linux as well. Windows and macOS are not in scope for this project. zlicenser-pro, a future commercial release, may support other operating systems.

Related repositories

• zlicenser-protocol: shared protocol, crypto, and wire formats
• zlicenser: client library and user-facing apps

License

Apache-2.0, see LICENSE.