KB40435 - Subscription license expires prematurely in an Active / Passive or Active / Active cluster environment

This article describes an issue where subscription licenses remaining days count down faster than expected when the nodes are in cluster.

After installing subscription licenses for each node in a cluster, the license may reach its expiration faster than expected.

For example, (2) 1-YR 50-User RDP subscription renewal licenses are installed on each node in a cluster with a start date of March 15, 2016.  The license is expected to expire on March 15, 2017, however, the license actually expires in December 2016, three months early.

This issue only affects licenses that installed on nodes in a cluster.  Standalone devices are not affected by the problem.

This issue occurs due to a software defect where the license updater is not properly synced across all nodes in the cluster after a cluster split. This causes an improper calculation in the number of remaining days left for the license and results in a license being decremented by one or more days each time a cluster split occurs of the VIP fails over.  

This issue is applicable to all software versions lower than the fixed version below.  Also, this issue only applies to cluster environment, not standalone devices.

Pulse Secure had fixed this issue in releases 8.1R13, 8.2R8, and 8.3R2. All versions after these releases have the fix.  

To help root cause (confirm) this issue, please enable the following values under Maintenance > TroubleShooting > Monitoring > Debug Log :

Event Codes:  DSLIC,DSLicenseServerProto,LSCurl,dsnetd::ipat,dsnetd::garpsweep
Debug Log Detail Level: 10
Max Debug Log Size: 50MB

Once this is enabled, please allow to run for 4 to 6 hours or until a cluster split occurs, then take a system snapshot including the debug logs.  Once completed, gather the system snapshot, open a support case and attach this to the support case at https://my.pulsesecure.net.

Workaround if unable to upgrade yet to fixed versions:

Please open a support case and reference this KB article. A temporary subscription licenses will be provided that will honor the correct expiration date of the license.