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Managing Licenses

Overview

HCLI lists the IDA licenses your account is entitled to, downloads their license files, and copies those files into an IDA installation.

Three commands cover this:

Command What it does Login required
hcli license list Shows your licenses and their details Yes
hcli license get Downloads license files Yes
hcli license install Copies a license file into an IDA directory No

Viewing Licenses

List the licenses available to you:

hcli license list

If your account has access to more than one customer, HCLI asks which one to use. Licenses are grouped as Perpetual and Subscription, and each table shows the license ID, edition, type, status, expiration and add-ons.

Restrict the list to one plan:

hcli license list --plan subscription
hcli license list --plan legacy

--plan legacy selects perpetual licenses. There is no command that shows a single license in more detail; hcli license list is the complete view.

Downloading License Files

hcli license get downloads license files to a directory. Only licenses whose status is active can be downloaded.

Choose interactively from your active licenses:

hcli license get

When more than one license matches, HCLI shows a checkbox list so you can select several at once.

Download one specific license:

hcli license get --id 96-0000-0000-01

Download every active license into a directory:

hcli license get --all --output-dir ./licenses

The options are:

Option Meaning
-i, --id License ID, for example 96-0000-0000-01
-p, --plan subscription or legacy
-t, --type Product code, for example IDAPRO, IDAHOME, LICENSE_SERVER
-a, --all Take every match instead of prompting
--output-dir Where to write the files (default: the current directory)

License files are named after the license, for example idapro_96-0000-0000-01.hexlic.

Installing Licenses

Automatic: during IDA installation

hcli ida install --license-id downloads the matching license file and copies it into the new installation for you:

hcli ida install --license-id 96-0000-0000-01 ida-pro_92_armmac.app.zip

This is the recommended path. See Installing IDA.

Manual: an existing installation

Download the license file, then install it:

hcli license get --id 96-0000-0000-01
hcli license install idapro_96-0000-0000-01.hexlic

The file is a positional argument. With no second argument, HCLI asks where to put it:

Where do you want to install the license?
  1. /Users/user/.idapro (user directory)
  2. /Applications/IDA Professional 9.2.app
  3. Other (specify custom path)
? Select installation:

The list offers your IDA user directory, the IDA installations HCLI detects, and a custom path. If the directory you choose does not exist, HCLI offers to create it.

Give the target directory directly to skip the prompt:

hcli license install idapro_96-0000-0000-01.hexlic ~/.idapro

hcli license install only copies the file. It does not download anything, so it works without logging in, and it does not change any IDA configuration.

License Locations

The IDA user directory is the default suggestion:

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Hex-Rays\IDA Pro\
  • macOS and Linux: ~/.idapro/

HCLI_IDAUSR, or IDAUSR if the first is unset, overrides this location. See Environment Variables.

A license can also live in an installation directory rather than the user directory, which is where hcli ida install --license-id puts it. On macOS that is the Contents/MacOS directory inside the application bundle.

Troubleshooting

No licenses found

Check that you are logged in as the right user:

hcli whoami

Then check your entitlements:

hcli license list

If hcli license list shows a license but hcli license get does not offer it, the license is not active. Only active licenses can be downloaded.

Installation issues

  • Close IDA before replacing a license file.
  • Check that you can write to the target directory.
  • Confirm the file is the .hexlic file HCLI downloaded, not a renamed copy: hcli ida install --license-id looks for a name ending in <license-id>.hexlic.