Node-locked licensing

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Node-locked licensing, also known as a single use license,{{cite web |title=Getting started |url=https://mods.marin.nl/display/Install |website=Marin |publisher=Maritime Research Institute Netherlands |access-date=15 February 2025}} device license,{{Cite web|last=cmcatee-MSFT|title=Manage licenses for devices|url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/commerce/licenses/manage-licenses-for-devices|access-date=2021-07-20|website=docs.microsoft.com|language=en-us}} named host license, or machine-based license, is a software licensing approach in which a license for a software application is assigned to one or more hardware devices (specific nodes, such as a computer, mobile devices, or IoT device). Typically any numbers of instances are allowed to execute for such license.{{Cite book|last1=Cai|first1=Jian-ping|last2=Qiao|first2=Li-ping|title=2009 First International Conference on Information Science and Engineering |chapter=Research and Application of the Floating License Management Strategy |date=2009|chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5455642|location=Nanjing, China|publisher=IEEE|pages=1797–1800|doi=10.1109/ICISE.2009.889|isbn=978-1-4244-4909-5|s2cid=17429089 }}

This form of licensing is used by software publishers to ensure the license is only run on particular hardware devices.

Every node is identified by a unique hardware ID (device fingerprint) which needs to be obtained or entered during the pairing process (usually product setup or first license validation).