Key server (software licensing)

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A key server for software licensing is a centralized system which provides tokens, or keys, to client systems in order to enable licensed software to run on them. It is the job of a software licensing key server to make sure that only as many copies of a software package that have been licensed by a customer are allowed to be run at one time.

Typically, a large corporate enterprise will deploy a dedicated machine to perform as the key server. However, the server component of a client server application may also contain an internal licensing key server. Key servers are more commonly used for industry specialized applications than for common applications due to the complexity of their management.