Check the Status of an Enterprise Edition License

To track license expiration and ensure compliance with Redpanda licensing, you can monitor the status of your Enterprise Edition license using rpk, Redpanda Console, and observability tools such as logs and metrics.

Use rpk to check license status and feature usage

To check the status of your license, use the rpk cluster license info command. This command provides a detailed overview of your Redpanda license, including its status, expiration, and enterprise features currently in use.

Enterprise features in use are specific to Redpanda. They do not include enterprise features for Redpanda Connect or Redpanda Console.

  1. Make sure that rpk is installed and configured to connect to your cluster’s Admin API endpoint.

  2. Get the details about your cluster’s license:

    rpk cluster license info

    The command displays the license information in a user-friendly format. The output depends on the license status. It can include the following:

    Field Description

    License status

    Indicates the current state of the license. Possible values include:

    • valid: The license is active and valid.

    • expired: The license has expired, and restrictions may apply to enterprise features.

    • not_present: No license is currently applied.

    License violation

    A boolean value that indicates whether enterprise features are being used in violation of the licensing terms:

    • true: Enterprise features are enabled without a valid license.

    • false: No violations are detected.

    If the license violation status is true, you must either obtain a valid license or disable the enterprise features in use to ensure compliance. For instructions, see Disable Enterprise Features in Redpanda.

    Organization

    The organization for which the license was issued. Typically corresponds to the organization that purchased or activated the license.

    Type

    The type of license applied to the cluster:

    • enterprise: A full-featured enterprise license.

    • trial: A time-limited trial license.

    Expires

    The expiration date of the current license. After this date, the license status changes to expired.

    Enterprise features in use

    A list of enabled enterprise features in the cluster, such as tiered_storage, audit_logging, and partition_auto_balancing_continuous.

If the license is within 30 days of expiration, a warning is logged. rpk displays warnings when you execute rpk commands that use the Admin API in the following scenarios:

  • License violation: When enterprise features are enabled without a valid license.

  • Trial expiration: When enterprise features are enabled and a trial license expires in less than 15 days.

  • Enterprise expiration: When enterprise features are enabled and an enterprise license is expired.

Examples

This section provides examples of what rpk reports depending on the license status.

Valid license:

LICENSE INFORMATION
===================
License status:              valid
License violation:           false
Enterprise features in use:  [partition_auto_balancing_continuous]
Organization:                Devex
Type:                        enterprise
Expires:                     Oct 11 2025

Without a valid license:

LICENSE INFORMATION
===================
License status:              not_present
License violation:           false
Enterprise features in use:  [partition_auto_balancing_continuous]

Expired license:

WARNING: The following enterprise features are being used in your Redpanda cluster: [partition_auto_balancing_continuous]. These features require a license.
LICENSE INFORMATION
===================
License status:              expired
License violation:           true
Enterprise features in use:  [partition_auto_balancing_continuous]

Change the output format

Different output formats can be useful depending on your scenario. For example, if you are writing scripts or automating license monitoring, you may prefer the JSON format, as it’s easily parsed by tools like jq or integrated into monitoring systems.

To get the license information in another format, use the --format flag:

rpk cluster license info --format <format>

Replace <format> with one of the available formats. See rpk cluster license info.

Use Redpanda Console to check license status

You can also check the status of your license in the Redpanda Console UI. See Manage Enterprise Edition Licenses through Redpanda Console.

Redpanda Console tries to load a valid license at startup in the following order:

  1. From the local configuration file or environment variables.

  2. From the connected Redpanda cluster (if available).

Redpanda Console displays warnings in the following scenarios:

  • Upcoming license expiration: Redpanda Console checks the license status at startup. If the license expires within 30 days, a warning is displayed in the UI. Redpanda Console also logs the license details at startup, including the expiration date. For example:

    {"level":"info","msg":"successfully loaded Redpanda Enterprise license","license_org":"redpanda","license_type":"enterprise","expires_at":"Oct 12 2024"}

  • Redpanda Self-Managed enterprise features are in use without a valid license: If the Redpanda cluster is using enterprise features without a valid license, Redpanda Console displays a warning specifying the features in use without proper licensing.

Use the Redpanda Operator to check license status

If you deployed a Redpanda cluster in Kubernetes using the Redpanda Operator, you can monitor the Enterprise Edition license status from the Redpanda custom resource. The operator integrates license monitoring into the resource’s status.conditions field, allowing you to get the license state with kubectl.

Identify your Redpanda resources:

kubectl get redpanda -A

Example output:

NAMESPACE   NAME      LICENSE       READY   STATUS
redpanda    cluster   Valid         True    Redpanda reconciliation succeeded

The License field indicates whether the license is valid. Possible values include:

  • Valid: The license is valid.

  • Expired: The license has expired.

  • Not Present: No license is applied.

The Redpanda Operator performs a license check during reconciliation, which is triggered in the following cases:

  • If changes are made to the Redpanda resource or its status.

  • If changes are made to resources managed by the operator, such as the StatefulSet resources for brokers or Deployment resources for Redpanda Console.

  • If no changes occur, the operator reconciles every 10 hours (default cache resync interval).

  • If you force reconciliation by making a no-op change, such as adding an annotation, to the Redpanda resource.

Monitor a license in the logs

Logs are emitted on Redpanda brokers to help you understand how the license is being applied and when enforcement actions are triggered.

Monitor a license using metrics

The redpanda_cluster_features_enterprise_license_expiry_sec metric tells you how many seconds remain until the license expires. Use this metric to set up alerts or dashboards to track the license expiration status and ensure timely renewal.

Next steps