Available Versions & Licensing

The ntopng software comes in four versions: Community, Professional, Enterprise M, Enterprise L, and Enterprise L Bundle. Each version unlocks additional features with respect to the smaller one.

The full list of features and differences between versions is available in the ntopng Product Page.

ntopng Community

The Community version is free to use and open source. The full source code can be found on Github.

ntopng Professional

The Professional version offers some extra features with respect to the Community, which are particularly useful for SMEs, including graphical reports, traffic profiles and LDAP authentication.

ntopng Enterprise M

The Enterprise M version offers some extra features with respect to the Professional version, which are particularly useful for large organizations, including SNMP support, advanced alerts management.

ntopng Enterprise L

The Enterprise L version offers some extra features with respect to the Enterprise M version, including fast ClickHouse export, historical data explorer and analysis, Identity Management (the ability to correlate users to traffic).

ntopng Enterprise L Bundle

The Enterprise L Bundle unlocks ntopng Enterprise L, nProbe Pro (Flow Collection), and n2disk 1 Gbit (Continuous Recording).

Warning

ntopng and nProbe must be on the same machine to have them unlocked with the ntopng Enterprise L Bundle license. The bundle license must be placed under /etc/ntopng/ntopng.license.

Licensing

The Community edition does not need any license. Professional and Enterprise versions require a license. ntopng automatically switches to one of these four versions, depending on the presence of a license.

License is per-server and is released according to the EULA (End User License Agreement). Each license is perpetual (i.e. it does not expire) and it allows to install updates for one year since purchase/license issue. This means that a license generated on 1/1/2021 will be able to activate new versions of the software until 12/31/2021. If you want to install new versions of the software release after that date, you need to renew the maintenance or avoid further updating the software. For source-based ntopng you can refer to the GPL-v3 License.

ntopng licenses are generated using the orderId and email you provided when the license has been purchased on https://shop.ntop.org/.

Once the license has been generated, it can be applied to ntopng simply by visiting page “Settings”->”License” of the web GUI and pasting the license key in the license form.

Alternatively, the license key can be placed in a one-line file ntopng.license:

  • On Linux, the file must be placed in /etc/ntopng.license
  • On Windows, the file must be placed in Program Files/ntopng/ntopng.license

Note

An ntopng restart is recommended once the license has been applied to make sure all the new functionalities will be unlocked.

Purchasing a License

The first step is to purchase a license. Licenses can be purchased online at https://shop.ntop.org. For bulk purchases, reseller discounts, or any other special requirement related to the purchase of licenses you can contact ntop directly. Once the purchase has been completed successfully, you will receive an Order Id.

The Order Id

The Order Id

The Order Id is a numeric identifier associated to the purchase. Along with the Order Id you’ll also find the email indicated during the purchase procedure. Both Order Id and the email are necessary to generate the license key.

Generating the License Key

License keys are generated at https://shop.ntop.org/mkntopng/. To generate the license key, you need:

  • The Order Id received after the purchase and the email indicated during the purchase procedure (see Purchasing a License).
  • The System Id, that is, an identifier associated to the host running ntopng
  • The ntopng version, that is, a string representing the version of the installed ntopng (e.g., 5.1.210819).

Note

The System Id and the version can only be obtained after ntopng has been installed successfully. If you have not yet installed it, follow the installation procedure indicated at https://packages.ntop.org/ before moving forward with the license key generation.

The System Id and the version can be always obtained from the ntopng UI, page “Help -> About”

`System Id` and `version` from the UI

System Id and version from the UI

On Linux, FreeBSD and other unix-based systems, the System Id and the version can also be obtained from the command line simply with an ntopng --version

$ ntopng --version
Version: 5.1.210819 [Enterprise/Professional build]
GIT rev: dev:065742705143bd1af06cf99fb2f35505ee349bb3:20210819
Pro rev: r4187
Built on:   Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS
System Id:  LA2D7D2FB9206AAF2--UA2D7D2FBDDCCD490--OL
Platform:   x86_64
Edition: Enterprise L (Bundle)
License Type:  Time-Limited [Empty license file]
Validity:   Until Thu Aug 19 18:23:03 2021

On Windows, System Id and the version can be printed from the command interpreter with a ntopng.exe /c --version inside the ntopng installation directory C:\Program Files\ntopng.

Generating The Key

To generate the license visit https://shop.ntop.org/mkntopng/ and fill the form using all the information indicated above.

Warning

You must also pick the right version from the dropdown ntopng Edition:. Make sure this version matches with the version you’ve purchased or the license generation will fail.

Installing The Key

Upon successful generation, the license key will be printed in the browser. At this point you have two options:

You can copy the license key in a plain text file /etc/ntopng.license, e.g.,

# echo "XJQ6U04QIW2ixxzNMfGnWibAySvd8Rd3K4qxymrZNT3DoR0m1K6Ybx1nnG1Y1n+7O4znPE4Zroy+A5EZZfu/i0UzrOhly/HNUgNju+RTP6d/zAvMTs04ZtIG9/BjalrrOfHzw0bU3uTm0z1F+S5N6IFUP6cXzoWP+yrpGmPjzmQHGa5kSw5IJw6YjmPvAgGLHsKn+u2KoA6xP7c4eZ7YGJ/S6MTmYtLFOBse4qoaViSC30RBu54QVG4Zafz4qwhMEnT+hijwbkWJfjZBRzl3eLE05HclnkRWibuYJqKG6c9NRExF0u6a3+P/+ouB7PcczDf8G4O22MWgr2cTNjsmRA==" > /etc/ntopng.license

Alternatively on selected platforms (e.g. Windows), you can paste the license key straight into the ntopng UI, page “Settings -> License”

Installing the ntopng License Key

Installing the ntopng License Key

This said it is recommended to place the license key in the plain text file.

Note

A restart of ntopng is required after license installation to make sure all the licensed features will be properly unlocked.

Example

Let’s say that we’ve purchased an ntopng Enterprise L license for:

$ ntopng --version
Version: 5.1.210819 [Enterprise/Professional build]
[...]
System Id:  LA2D7D2FB9206AAF2--UA2D7D2FBDDCCD490--OL

The Order Id received after the purchase is 1621231231 and the email indicated during the purchase procedure is info@ntop.org.

The form at https://shop.ntop.org/mkntopng/ will be filled as follow

License Generation Example

License Generation Example

Upon successful generation, the license key will be printed in the browser:

The Obtained License Key

The Obtained License Key

At this point the license can be installed as described above or simply by following the instructions indicated in the resulting page.

Using the License Manager

In addition to the standard licenses described above, ntopng can use the license manager (LM). Please refer to https://www.ntop.org/guides/nprobe/introduction.html#using-the-license-manager for details about the LM.

In order to use the LM simply do `ntopng --license-mgr <licensemgr>.conf <other ntopng options>`.

Below you can find an example of license manager configuration file for ntopng:

LICENSE_MANAGER=127.0.0.1:9999

#
# Unique instance name
#
INSTANCE_NAME=dummy ntopng instance

#
# User authentication token
#
AUTH_TOKEN=fjfgsfgsj

#
# nprobe ntopng
#
PRODUCT_FAMILY=ntopng

#
# pro enterprise_s enterprise_m enterprise_l
#
PRODUCT_EDITION=enterprise_m

where

  • LICENSE_MANAGER is the IP and port of the host where the LM is running.
  • INSTANCE_NAME is a string used to indetity this specific instance
  • AUTH_TOKEN is a token that the LM can use to prevent issuing valid licenses for unknown AUTH_TOKEN. Its value must be configured in the LM.
  • PRODUCT_FAMILY and PRODUCT_EDITION define what license the ntop application will as the LM when contacting it.

Licenses on a Container

An article that explain everything in details on how to deploy a license inside a container can be found here: Deploying Licenses inside Conteainers