WLC 9800L License

[billydailey]

Brand new WLC-9800L with 17.9.3.  Trying to get the trial license activated using the Gui.  Selected both and clicked the save and reload box.  Once reloaded, did a show license and it still shows no license.   Any ideas?

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi @billydailey 

  Try via cli :

license air level air-network-advantage

[Rich R]

Can you explain what you mean by "trial license"?
My understanding is that the only thing you can do is select the licensing level (air-network-essentials or air-network-advantage) and then the WLC will request advantage or essentials licenses for each AP from smart licensing according to that setting.
I don't believe that a trial license exists because the WLC itself does not use a license - it's only the APs which are licensed.

Once you've selected the license level and activated smart licensing then you should see the WLC consuming AP licenses at that level for each AP:

9800#sh lic summ
Account Information:
Smart Account: XXXXXXX As of Jun 07 09:43:42 2023 BST
Virtual Account: XXXXXXX

License Usage:
License Entitlement Tag Count Status
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
air-network-advantage (DNA_NWStack) 287 IN USE
air-dna-advantage (AIR-DNA-A) 287 IN USE

[billydailey]

That makes sense.  However, we are in a lab environment that is not connected to the internet for smart licensing.  Our Cisco rep said we could use the 90 day trial license for the time being.  I had received a demo to test with and was able to activate it with that box, but i believe it was on an older IOS.  I looks like once it is talking to an AP in our case, the license then shows up.  And yes, the WLC will continue to function even if the license expires, you will just get some nags until it is updated.  Thanks for your input.