Chef Licensing Tiers FAQ

The FAQ below is designed to answer the most common questions about the Chef licensing tiers. If you have more questions please feel free to contact Chef or visit our community Slack.

Disclaimer: All FAQs apply to Chef InSpec 6 and later versions of InSpec. All other Chef products are unchanged by this licensing service—SKUs that include InSpec 6 or later will be affected, but only for the InSpec components.

Q: What are the three licensing tiers in Chef InSpec 6?

There are three licensing tiers - Free, Trial and Commercial.

Q: What’s included in Free, Trial and Commercial license tiers for Chef InSpec 6 and subsequent InSpec versions?

Q: What is a target?

A target is an instance of infrastructure, software, configuration, cloud accounts, container hosts or any other technical resource acting as the compliance target of one or more Chef InSpec profiles you use. Each target can access a resource with its credentials and locations.

Q: What does “post-limit” mean with Trial option?

The Trial license has a 30-day time limit; after that, the license does not allow access. Post-limit indicates the expiration of the 30-day time period, after which you have the choice to switch to another license type (Free/Commercial).

Q: How can commercial customers access the license key?

Commercial customers can follow the steps below:

• Go to Chef.io/downloads -> Current Customers Section
• Select Customer Portal -> Login
• Select Asset->InSpec
• Copy the serial number (license key) -> Enter the License key in InSpec CLI

Q: Are there any changes to Apache 2.0 licensing with respect to (w.r.t) InSpec?

No, all InSpec code will continue to be released under the Apache 2.0 license. InSpec gem will adhere to a dual license.

Q: Are we moving from Open Source to Closed Source (w.r.t InSpec)?

No, we are not moving away from open source. We are moving towards enforcing a licensed approach w.r.t InSpec. InSpec gem will adhere to a dual license.

We are committed to keeping the source code in InSpec open and shared broadly, especially with researchers, partners and innovators in the DevOps community.

Q: Will source code be available for Free-Tier, Trial and Commercial users (w.r.t InSpec)?

Yes. Source code continues to be available under the Open-Source Apache v2 license and you can continue to build, extend and reuse the source code.

Q: Can Chef Community users contribute to source code?

Yes. Chef Community users can continue contributing to the InSpec source code repositories.

Q: What happens to pull request (PR)/bugs raised in the InSpec community?

• PR will be reviewed and accepted by the Chef InSpec team
• The source code will be open and accessible to everyone

Q: Are users required to enter the license key while using InSpec via the CINC version?

You will not be required to enter the license key if you download the source code and package on your own downstream version or you are using the CINC version.

Q: Is the End-User Licensing Agreement (EULA) changing?

• There is no change in the EULA – EULA acceptance upon downloading InSpec 6 is still required by all users of the InSpec product in Chef distributions.
• Our source code continues to be open-source; reusing source code is governed by the Apache license.
• We are introducing a formalized way of accessing the product with Free-tier and Trial license.
• The license tiers are a mechanism to specify granular access to the InSpec product. Accepting the EULA also provides a detailed view of what you are entitled to.

Q: Where does the licensing server run?

Chef hosts the license service (which issues the license keys) and is where the keys in the Download portal come from.

You can also download a private license service – which can cache these license grants for an organization (though it cannot issue new licenses) -- and operate this on their infrastructure. This can be useful for large workloads (high license demand) or scenarios where the workload may not be able to access the internet (air-gapped or protected workloads) and needs a cached version of the service.

There are two options:

• Global licensing service
• On-premises licensing service / Air-gapped licensing service

Q: What happens to feature requests from the InSpec community?

They will be taken into a backlog and prioritized in product roadmap discussions.

Q: What are the implications of this license change on our open-source users?

• The licensing changes only apply to the running of the InSpec application. Licensing has no implications for publishing or using the source code. InSpec code will be committed to the GitHub repo as before.
• With the new release, commercially distributed executables will need a license key in addition to accepting the terms and conditions of EULA (which is done now).
• A license key will not be required if you are building your own downstream version, using your own or CINC distribution
• New commercial distributions will be introduced under the commercial license type alongside existing Free and Trial Tier@ licenses (and distributions)
• There will be three licensing tiers and you can choose an appropriate license tier based on your business needs.
• To get started:
  • Accept the terms of the Chef End User License when you run the upgraded Chef software for the first time.
  • You’ll be prompted to enter a license key, which will be provided via email.
  • Once you enter the license key, you can access features and functionalities based on the licensing tier you have opted for.
  • Please follow the instructions on our website to activate your license key and start using Chef.
• If you have any questions or need assistance, reach out to us @ https://www.chef.io/contact-us

Q: What are the implications of this license change on our commercial customers?

• As a valued Chef commercial customer, you will be entitled to all the features and benefits that come with the subscription you purchased.
• However, going forward, you will need a license key to download and access the latest version of Chef Compliance and Chef Cloud Security.
• To get started:
  • Accept the terms of the Chef End User License when you run the upgraded Chef software for the first time
  • You will be prompted to enter a license key, which is available in the customer support portal
  • Once the license key is activated, you can access features and functionalities based on the Chef subscription you have opted for
• Please follow the instructions on our website to activate your license key and start using Chef.
• If you have any questions or need any assistance, our support team is here to help @ https://www.chef.io/contact-us

Q: What versions will this change apply to?

InSpec 6 and subsequent InSpec versions.

Q: Can I still use older versions of the InSpec open-source Software?

Yes, you can still use older versions of the InSpec open-source software. License keys do not apply to versions of InSpec before version six.

Q: Will the InSpec client check for the license key every time it is executed?

Yes, InSpec will check for the license key every time it is executed. It will ask for the license key if it doesn't find it.

Q: Currently, we are using InSpec as part of the Chef compliance phase. How is this change going to impact us?

InSpec 6 with the Chef Compliance phase is currently in design and will be available soon. With InSpec 6, licensing will impact only the standalone CLI and you can continue the compliance phase or test-kitchen operations with InSpec 5.

Q: When you input a key to InSpec CLI, the license gets activated. Is the key unique to the organization?

Yes, the commercial key is unique to the organization’s agreement. Free and Trial keys are unique to the user’s email address.

Q: As a commercial user, how will I activate multiple instances of InSpec?

InSpec 6 supports three options for setting the license key in bulk under automation:

• Setting the license key through an environment variable, CHEF_LICENSE_KEY:

  Environment variables are a powerful feature that lets you set values once and reuse them many times after deployment. They can be used with many systems like Docker, Jenkins, Terraform and other deployment technologies. It is an easy and appealing integration path for many customers.

• Setting the license key from the command line invocation using a command-line argument, such as --chef-license-key:

  This process may be more appealing in cases where you have automated scripted installation of InSpec and can change the invocation string more easily than by using environment variables. This is also an easy way to integrate using Infrastructure-as-Code tools like Chef Infra.

• The last option:

  For large installations or non-internet accessible deployments – commercial customers can run a local “private” license server (provided by Chef), which can cache and distribute the licenses to the InSpec instances. Each InSpec instance can discover the server using an environment variable, CHEF_LICENSE_SERVER. Air-gapped customers are required to use this method.