License checkout to work offline

Unity designed the Licensing Server primarily as an online system. In other words, the system can manage a pool of licenses when an organization's members remain connected to the network.

However, sometimes you might need to work with Unity while disconnected from the network and the licensing server.

If you need to disconnect from the network while using Unity, you can temporarily check out a floating license within Unity Hub for up to 99 days, by default. After the checkout period ends, you can reacquire a floating license by using the standard, online mechanism.

The checkout period is also capped by the license expiration. In other words, you can't check out a license for the maximum period if the license itself expires before the end of the requested checkout period.

Prerequisites

The license checkout feature has the following requirements:

  • Unity Hub version 3.8 or later.
  • Unity Licensing Server version 2.0 or later.
  • A supported Unity Editor (2020.3 or later).
  • Configure the server by setting the allowBorrow key. For more information, refer to Server configuration.
  • Configure the client by setting the hubEnableWorkOffline key. For more information, refer to Client configuration.

Server configuration

Before users can check out a license, or extend its checkout period, the server administrator must manually edit the floating license server configuration file.

To enable the license checkout feature, follow this one-time configuration:

  1. Locate the licensing-server-config.json file on your server. For information about the location of this file, refer to Server paths.

  2. Open the configuration file in a text editor.

  3. Find the "allowBorrow" key and assign a value of true. If the key-value pair doesn't exist, add it. Example:

    "allowBorrow": true

    For more information about configuration keys, and to view a full example, refer to Advanced server configuration.

  4. Save and close the file.

After you save the file, you don't need to restart the server.

Client configuration

Each user that wants to check out a license to work offline use must update the services-config.json configuration file on their computer.

  1. Open a file manager application, such as File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (macOS).

  2. Go to the following folder:

    • Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\Unity\config\
    • macOS: /Library/Application Support/Unity/config/
    • Linux: /usr/share/unity3d/config/

  3. Open the configuration file in a text editor.

  4. Add the following value:

    "hubEnableWorkOffline": true

    If the file has other settings, make sure you separate each key-value pair with a comma.

    For more information about client configuration, and to view a full example, refer to Client configuration.

  5. Save and close the file.

Work offline

After the server and client computers are configured, you can check out a license by using the Unity Hub.

  1. Open the Unity Hub.
  2. Select the Projects tab.
  3. Select Work offline and follow the prompts.

For more information, refer to Unity Hub documentation.

Additional resources

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