License activation via command line

Online and offline activation

Important

nextnano licenses are hardware specific. Virtual machines and similar environments influence the fingerprint as well. You have to perform the license activation on the same computer (and VM setup) where you want to run the nextnano software.

You can download the executable matching your operating system, processor (and VM setup) from the advanced section of our download page: nextnano License Activators. The executable necessary for license activation is called nextnanoLicenseActivator.exe for Windows or nextnanoLicenseActivator_<OS NAME> for other operating systems.

For each activator version, the necessary and optional parameters will be displayed if you run the executable without giving any parameters. The --help option is also available.

Example commands to activate licenses:

$ ./nextnanoLicenseActivator_ubuntu --firstname Albert  --lastname Einstein  --email albert.einstein@nextnano.com
--institution nextnano --licensekey albert.einstein@nextnano.com-2026-01-01-someHash --outpath ./path/you/want/to/save/licenses
[--fingerprint <path to fingerprint file> in case of Fingerprint activation]
[--address <server IP address> in case default one shall be overwritten]
[--offline <> in case of offline activation]

When you activate the license, please enter exactly your License Key for the licensekey parameter.

You will receive the key via email after purchasing a license, it has the format: <email of license owner>-<end of validity>-<5-15 digits hash>

The fields for your name and email are meant for the user of the nextnano software! They do not need to match the license owner. This information is already contained in the license key.

Note, the exact name of nextnanoLicenseActivator depends on your operating system, processor and whether you are using Wine or a similar environment. Please use the exact name of the nextnanoLicenseActivator executable file you downloaded.

If everything works, you will find the license file(s) License_<nextnano tool>.lic in your specified output directory. The number of the received files depends on your contract. Each of our products has its own distinctive license file, however License_nnp.lic can be used for both the nextnano++ and nextnano³ tools.

If the communication with the license server is not successful, please specify the --offline parameter to obtain a fingerprint file. Send this file to our support team via nextnano Help Center. After we receive your fingerprint file, we will activate and send you your license file(s).

Fingerprint activation

Fingerprint activation is a special form of online activation. Instead of sending the hardware fingerprint of the current computer, the selected hardware fingerprint file will be sent to the nextnano license server. As a result, the received license file(s) will only work on the computer on which the fingerprint file was generated and not on the computer used for license activation (unless they are the same).

If you encounter any issues regarding license activation or validity, please check our FAQ section: FAQ - Licensing

---

Last update: 29/01/2026