How do I resolve "Agent License Request Denied" license limit notifications?

[Rugved.Sarode]

You may encounter license-related notifications due to license limits on your Controller, account, or license rules. The instructions below guide you through how to resolve these specific notifications:

• Agent License Request Denied. | Reason: Limit on Controller
• Agent License Request Denied. | Reason: Limit on Account
• Agent License Request Denied. | Reason: Limit on LicenseRule

To learn about what each notification means, first read: Why am I seeing license limit notifications?

Contents

• Instructions applicable to all three notifications
• Additional instructions specific to “Reason: Limit on LicenseRule”

Instructions applicable to all three notifications

If you encounter any of these notifications, you might want to increase, switch, or move licenses between Controller / accounts / license rules following the steps below.

1. Switch Licenses:
   1. On-premise Controllers:
      1. Account license switch: Check http://<controllerHost>:<Port>/controller/admin.jsp → Accounts Settings tab
      2. Controller license switch: Contact help@appdynamics.com / support with the following information:
         1. From Controller MAC ID | To Controller MAC ID | AgentType | Units
            1. Please note that submitting this information in a table format is helpful,
         2. Attach your existing license.lic files, as well. 
   2. SAAS Controllers:
      1. Contact help@appdynamics.com / support with the following information:
         
         1. From accountName | To accountName | AgentType | Units
2. Release licenses:
   1. You can move applications and servers out of scope using license rules. If you already had agents reporting to this license rule, please remember that a license is given on a first come basis. It may be better for you to turn off the undesirable agents.
   2. Set license allocations to 0 or reduce the number of units under some license rules to make them available for others. Please remember that a license is given on a first come basis. It may be better for you to turn off the undesirable agents.
   3. Uninstall existing agents by taking them completely down so they can’t connect to the Controller. Please remember that disabled agents still consume licenses.
   4. If you don’t have any more units, you might want to procure new licenses by contacting your AppDynamics Account Manager or our Sales team at sales@appdynamics.com.

4. Admins should notify their users or respective app owners about the limits.

Additional instructions specific to “Reason: Limit on LicenseRule”

This notification indicates that licenses are maxed out on the license rule level. An account can have multiple license rules, each of which has assigned license units. Every license rule has a different AccessKey through which agents connect. You could be getting this notification because:

1. You may not have allocated enough units to the particular license rule seen in the notification, even if you have enough license units at Account/Controller level.
2. Someone accidently changed allocations to lower values.
3. You may have procured new license units.
4. You are actually hitting the limits and all units are being consumed. There are no units in the Unallocated buffer because all the licenses your company bought are already divided amongst the other license rules. If there are still licenses in your Unallocated Units, you can reach out to your Account Admin to increase your allocation.

The screenshot below demonstrates all four of these scenarios.

Solution:

1. Go to Settings →  Licenses → Rules and select the name of the license rule listed in the notification. Click Edit and change allocations if you see more units under the Unallocated Unites column.
2. Swap units between license rules.
1. Using the screenshot above as an example, let’s say you have 36 APM licenses on the Default Rule, but only 10 are used. However, all 36 licenses on LicenseRule1 have been consumed. You could move 20 from the Default Rule to LicenseRule1 temporarily.
3. If you are actually hitting the limits and all units are being consumed, the two steps above will not work. Instead, follow Steps 1, 2, and 3 under the Instructions applicable to all three notifications section of this article.

Last Updated: 3/5/19