Product Documentation
Application Delivery Management
14.1-Current Release 13.1
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Scenarios for Flexed or Pooled license expiry and connectivity issues behavior

October 3, 2025
Contributed by: 
C

Important:

File-based licensing system (also referred to as manually managed entitlements), traditionally used for activating various on-premises components, will be End of Life (EOL) on April 15, 2026. License Activation Service (LAS) is the next generation technology for product activations across the suite of Citrix products. LAS will be the only way to activate and license NetScaler instances after April 15, 2026, supporting NetScaler Flexed licenses (CPL/UHMC), legacy NetScaler Pooled licenses, and NetScaler Fixed term Bandwidth licenses. To remain supported, your NetScaler and NetScaler Console deployments must be on a LAS compatible version.

The minimum required NetScaler® versions that are LAS compatible are:

  • NetScaler ADCs: 14.1-51.80, 13.1-60.29, 13.1-37.247 (FIPS)

  • NetScaler SVM: 14.1-51.83, 13.1-60.30

  • NetScaler Console Service: Supported from early September 2025.

  • NetScaler Console on-prem: 14.1-51.83

    Note: LAS support for Console on-prem is from release 14.1-51.83 onwards. However, file-based licensing is deprecated from Console on-prem releases 14.1-51.83 onwards and 13.1-60.26 onwards, and goes EOL on April 15th, 2026. That is, even if you upgrade to Console on-prem release 14.1-51.83 or release 13.1-60.26 or later, you can continue using file-based licensing. However you must upgrade to Console on-prem release 14.1-51.83 or later, and switch to LAS before 15th April 2026 because file-based licensing reaches EOL.

All the other forms of legacy NetScaler licenses such as Pooled vCPU, CICO, perpetual will not be supported with LAS. NetScaler instances leveraging perpetual licenses without an active maintenance will become unlicensed upon upgrade to the above mentioned software versions.

LAS-based licenses may not be available to customers where prohibited by law or regulations.

If you have questions or concerns, contact Customer Care. Citrix may limit or suspend your Citrix Maintenance for non-compliance with these requirements without liability in addition to any other remedies Citrix may have at law or equity. These requirements don’t apply where prohibited by law or regulation.

LAS-based licenses

Before the term expires

  • The license must be renewed before its term expires.
  • For NetScaler Console on-prem (cloud-connected), the license entitlement is renewed automatically if the license contract has been renewed within 24 hours.
  • If the license is renewed before the term expires, the NetScaler will seamlessly switch to the new license after the old one expires, as long as the device is up and running.
  • A restart is not required.
  • NetScaler does not require a manual capacity reconfiguration.

After the term expires

If the license is not renewed before its term expires, the NetScaler instance stops normal operations.

  • It loses its configuration.

  • All traffic processing shuts down completely.

Scenarios for connectivity issues behavior

The license activation blobs that NetScaler instances receive from Console on-prem as part of the License with LAS or Migrate to LAS processes are valid for 30 days.

If the NetScaler loses connectivity with Console on-prem and then reconnects, it immediately receives the license activation blob without any delay.

If a NetScaler cannot reconnect to Console on-prem for up to 24 hours, it enters a grace period.

By default, license activation blobs are refreshed every 8 hours. If a refresh attempt fails three consecutive times within 24 hours, the NetScaler enters a grace period.

Grace period:

  • NetScaler enters a 30-day grace period.

  • All licensing functionality continues to work. However, on the thirty-first day:

    • NetScaler VPX, NetScaler CPX, NetScaler BLX, and NetScaler MPX instances undergoes a forced reboot and become unlicensed.

    • The throughput on all VPX instances on a NetScaler SDX is reduced to 1 Mbps.

License grace period alert

On the Flexed dashboard, a warning icon appears that the instance is in the grace period and the remaining days before the license activation blob expires. Everytime an admin logs in to the NetScaler instance GUI, a pop-up message appears indicating that the instance is in the grace period and the remaining days before the license activation blob expires.

Manually managed license (file-based license)

This document presents different scenarios of license expiry and connectivity issues behavior in NetScaler MPX, NetScaler SDX, and NetScaler VPX/NetScaler BLX/NetScaler CPX.

Types of Flexed licenses

  • Software instance (VPX/BLX/CPX, SDX, MPX, VPX FIPS)
  • Bandwidth capacity

Scenario: MPX form factor

You are using Flexed/Pooled licensing and the licenses are due to expire soon. The following scenarios explain the behavior when a new license is uploaded on NetScaler Console before and after the term expires, or when a license file is not present.

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before the term expires, and the old license is still valid, two different pools of capacity (old and new) are available.

  • If NetScaler is up and running, it switches to the new Flexed/Pooled license seamlessly after the old license expires.
  • Restart is not required.
  • NetScaler does not require a manual capacity reconfiguration.

After the term expires

NetScaler instance stops its normal operations after the license expiry, including configuration loss and complete shutdown of traffic processing.

Scenario: SDX form factor

You are using Flexed/Pooled licensing and the licenses are due to expire soon. The following scenarios explain the behavior when a new license is uploaded on NetScaler Console before and after the term expires, or when a license file is not present.

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before the term expires, and the old license is still valid, two different pools of capacity (old and new) are available.

  • If NetScaler is up and running, it switches to the new Flexed/Pooled license seamlessly after the old license expires.
  • Restart is not required.
  • NetScaler does not require a manual capacity reconfiguration.

After the term expires

NetScaler instance stops its normal operations after the license expiry, including configuration loss and complete shutdown of traffic processing.

Scenario: VPX/BLX/CPX form factor

You are using Flexed/Pooled licensing and the licenses are due to expire soon. The following scenarios explain the behavior when a new license is uploaded on NetScaler Console before and after the term expires, or when a license file is not present.

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before the term expires, and the old license is still valid, two different pools of capacity (old and new) are available.

  • If NetScaler is up and running, it switches to the new Flexed/Pooled license seamlessly after the old license expires.
  • Restart is not required.
  • NetScaler does not require a manual capacity reconfiguration.

After the term expires

NetScaler instance stops its normal operations after the license expiry, including configuration loss and complete shutdown of traffic processing.

Scenarios for connectivity issues behavior

If connectivity breaks between NetScaler and NetScaler Console on-prem server, the behavior is as follows:

  • NetScaler goes into grace for 30 days.

  • During this grace period, licensing functionality continues to work until the thirtieth day.

  • On the thirty-first day,

    • NetScaler VPX/NetScaler CPX/NetScaler BLX and NetScaler MPX undergo a forced reboot and become unlicensed.

    • The throughput on all the VPX on NetScaler SDX is decreased to 1 Mbps.

Scenarios for Flexed or Pooled license expiry and connectivity issues behavior
October 3, 2025
Contributed by: 
C
October 3, 2025
Contributed by: 
C

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