Restrict License by IP Address
Problem to solve
GitLab license files for self-managed servers can be used on multiple machines for multiple servers and we do not have a good way of restricting usage of these license files. I believe its our intent that a license only be used for a single GitLab instance. However, its not unusual for a customer to re-use that license file for a test server or even for a second production server, assuming its the same set of users on the 2nd machine.
This is very difficult for Sales to track... How many servers is this license being used for? Can we confirm that its the same user set on both servers? etc.
It might just be easier to restrict a license file to a single machine or instance via IP Address.
Intended users
Further details
The benefits of restricting licenses by ip address is that we now completely control how many licensed instances of GitLab are in use at a customer site. We can also better track the users on each machine by requiring user lists, etc.
The downside of this is that this is a lot of additional overhead for the Sales Ops and licensing teams to administrate on the back end.
Proposal
Restrict a license to usage on a single ip address.