Running Offline Without an Internet Connection

In order to validate your license key, by default MoveIt Pro requires an internet connection every time it runs. However, if you need your license to be more robust to periodic internet connection issues, you can set up MoveIt Pro for offline authentication.

note

Offline activation requests are fingerprinted to the system they will work on.

Simple: Using the moveit_pro_license Application

The moveit_pro_license application automates license provisioning and offline activation. It is distributed as a Debian package versioned alongside MoveIt Pro.

Installation

amd64

sudo apt install curl
curl -Lo /tmp/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_amd64.deb https://github.com/PickNikRobotics/moveit_pro_deb/raw/main/license/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_amd64.deb
sudo apt install /tmp/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_amd64.deb

arm64

sudo apt install curl
curl -Lo /tmp/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_arm64.deb https://github.com/PickNikRobotics/moveit_pro_deb/raw/main/license/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_arm64.deb
sudo apt install /tmp/moveit-pro-license_8.10.3_arm64.deb

Setup

Create an activation file at ~/.config/moveit_pro/activation.txt with the following contents:

{
  "api_key": "your-api-key",
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "robot_serial_number": ""
}

note

Some API keys are authorized for license provisioning while others are only authorized for offline activation. Please contact support@picknik.ai to get an API key.

API keys are different from your license key.

Field	Required	Description
api_key	yes	API key issued to the customer by PickNik
email	yes	Email of the organization user
robot_serial_number	no	Robot serial number stored as license metadata

The application also reads your MoveIt Pro configuration file for an existing license key (STUDIO_LICENSE_KEY or MOVEIT_LICENSE_KEY).

Usage

By default, moveit_pro_license will prompt for offline activation only. To provision a new license, pass the --provision flag:

moveit_pro_license --provision

The following flags are available:

Flag	Description
--provision	Provision a new license (requires server-side permission)
--offline	Request a new offline activation response file without prompting
--no-offline	Skip offline activation

How It Works

1. Reads activation.txt for API credentials.
2. Searches MoveIt Pro configuration files for an existing license key.
3. If no key is found and --provision is set, provisions a new runtime license via the API.
4. Checks ~/.local/share/moveit_pro/ for an existing offline request file. If not found, generates one automatically.
5. Sends the offline request to the PickNik licensing service and writes the offline response file to ~/.local/share/moveit_pro/.

Manual: Offline Activation via Email

There are two parts to the offline license activation:

• An offline request file.
• An offline response file.

To setup offline activation:

1. Launch MoveIt Pro without an internet connection; it will automatically generate an offline request on your host system at ~/.local/share/moveit_pro/.

2. Email the offline activation request file (offlineRequest_<license_key>.dat) to support@picknik.ai so that we can generate an offline response file for you.

3. Once you receive the offline response file (offlineResponse_<license_key>.dat) from PickNik support, download and place it in ~/.local/share/moveit_pro/ on your system that will run MoveIt Pro.

The default time to be offline is 90 days. Please contact support@picknik.ai if you require a longer time.

note

The system will still require periodic NTP time syncs, but if the system fails to contact the license server it will use the offline response file to authenticate.

warning

Using the offline license on a Single Board Computer (SBC) that does not have an onboard battery to keep the clock running will likely result in a license activation failure. This is because even though the offline activation is designed to work without an internet connection it still encodes the time window for the license expiry in the offline activation. As a result, if the computer believes and reports a current time far in the past (2018, 1970, etc) then the offline activation will fail because it is outside the license time window.

Deactivating an Offline License for MoveIt Pro

Once an offline activation file has been created, the offline response file is only valid on the machine the offline request was generated on. To use the offline license on a different machine, it must be deactivated first. An activated license can be deactivated by emailing support@picknik.ai. Once deleted, new offline request files can be used to activate offline.