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--- playground:servers [2026-01-07 15:41] – Shuffle licensing server section geek
+++ playground:servers [2026-01-08 03:21] (current) – [Licensing Server] Write about unmanaged keys geek
@@ Line 105: / Line 105: @@
 ===== Licensing Server =====
-To effectively manage license keys, you generally need to run a server of some type. This server will hold the database and check that presented licensing information is valid. There are free options for running servers online.
+To effectively manage license keys, you generally need to run a server of some type. This server will hold the database and check that any presented licensing information is valid. There are free options for running servers online.
+As an alternative, you could instead build your script to use unmanaged keys. These are keys that are only checked locally using cryptography instead of getting checked against the server. These types of keys can either be generic, meaning that they can be used on any PC, or they can be derived from the fingerprint, meaning that they can only be used on the PC that they were generated for.
+Without a server, it is impossible to track whether a generic key is being shared between users. A derived key is harder for users to share because it must match the system fingerprint, but it does require you to collect the fingerprint //before// you can issue the key which makes key generation harder. With both types of unmanaged keys, if the key does get abused (for example, someone shares their key on a forum) it is not possible to revoke the key.
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