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How to transfer a license

Introduction

When you receive the replacement device, you'll need to transfer your existing license to the new device and join the new device to the HA cluster.

HA license transfer steps

When you receive the replacement device, you'll have the following three devices:

  • Device A is the faulty device.
  • Device B is the device that is working normally.
  • Device C is the replacement device.

To transfer the license to the replacement device, do as follows:

  1. Transfer device A's license to device C.
  2. Take a configuration backup from device B.
  3. Restore the backup to device C.
  4. Disable HA on both devices.
  5. Connect device C in device A's place. The network is now running with security from device C.
  6. Sign in to the web admin console of device B and make it the auxiliary device.
  7. Connect device B to the HA cluster.
  8. Enable HA on device C.
  9. The paid-for license will now synchronize from device C.

Register a device

To start either an automatic or manual transfer, both devices must be registered with your MySophos account. To register a device, do as follows:

  1. Sign in to your MySophos account.
  2. Click Network Protection.
  3. Click Register Device.
  4. Enter the serial number of the device and your details.
  5. Click Verify.

Automatic license transfer

If Sophos detects an RMA case for the device you're registering, then automatic license transfer is offered upon registration.

The following events prevent an automatic transfer from taking place:

  • A different registrant than the original is registering the replacement.
  • The serial number of the faulty device or the replacement serial number has been misrecorded in the RMA case. This means that you were supplied with the wrong serial number or Sophos recorded the wrong serial number.

If Sophos doesn't detect that the device being registered matches a faulty device in an RMA case, the following events take place:

  • If it's an Sophos Firewall, a 30-day evaluation license will be activated, which will include FullGuard Plus.
  • The original license will remain on the faulty device.

You can transfer the license yourself in this scenario, using the manual license transfer feature, without contacting Sophos.

To use the automatic license transfer, do as follows:

  1. Register the faulty device.

    If you've already successfully registered the faulty device, you can skip this step.

  2. Register the replacement device.

  3. You'll see a screen that presents the serial number of the faulty device. When you confirm, it'll complete the registration and transfer the paid-for license from the faulty device's serial number to the device you're registering.

    Note

    Make sure you carefully check that the faulty device's serial number displayed on the registration page matches that of your faulty device. The faulty device automatically deregisters since the license is transferred to the replacement. This won't take full effect on the faulty device until three more license synchronizations have taken place.

Manual license transfer

To perform a manual license transfer, do as follows:

  1. Sign in to your MySophos account.
  2. Click Network Protection.
  3. Click Transfer Licenses
  4. In the From field, select the serial number of the device you're transferring the license from. This is the faulty device.
  5. In the To field, select the serial number of the device you're transferring the license to. This is the replacement device.
  6. Select the checkbox to confirm you understand the effects of transferring the license and have the authority to do so. Clear the checkbox to deselect it.
  7. Click Transfer License.