SOHO Licenses

[Moffet]

Hey guys...

We've just set up a BOVPN connection using a SOHO 6tc connecting to our FBII at head office. There are around 20 users at the remote site, so we also bought the 25 user license upgrade for the SOHO.

We wanted the capability of a proxy server for internet access however (for logging, user authentication, file cache etc) and so set up a proxy and locked down the SOHO to only allow traffic out from the proxy server. Because of this, the SOHO only measures the number of licenses in use as 1 (the proxy server). It doesn't seem to measure the number of people using the VPN tunnel, so are the licenses purely for internet access?

Does this mean we didn't need the license upgrade? I'm asking because we are planning on similar setups at another 2 branch offices and don't want to buy license upgrades if we can help it. If we didn't get the licenses but the SOHO still worked for the number of users we have will it still be legal?

Thanks for your thoughts on this

Moffet

 

[Ntr0P]

The SOHO measures the license in terms of unique MAC addresses. Everytime a packet heading outbound hits the SOHO, it logs that MAC. As long as the list of MACs doesn't exceed your license (25 in this case) you are fine. You can check how many MACs are in the list through the web interface. I can't remember exactly where to find this, sorry... You can also clear this list from there as well.

Realistically if all traffic is going through the proxy and nothing needs to go through the SOHO directly, then you don't need 25.

 

[Ntr0P]

FYI... I forgot to mention, this info is for a SOHO 5 - I haven't worked with the 6 series so I don't know if this has changed. I assume it hasn't.

 

[Moffet]

So do the licenses not apply to using the VPN tunnel? The machines using it do not appear in the list of used licenses.

And you are saying I only need one license because even though I have 25 users accessing the internet, all the traffic comes from one machine. Does that mean I don't need a 50 user license upgrade for the next site I am going to set up?

Thanks