In this article, I am going to explain in brief that how to read the Symantec license file (*.slf) for the details like product, count, start date and end date. I am taking Symantec DLP as a reference for this article.
You will receive a file from Symantec or from their partner. Or you can download it yourself using the account that is there for you on Symantec portal. Usually, the filename would be something like 12345678.slf (just for example). slf stands for Symantec license file. To check the details like-
Product for which this license file is,
Start date of the license file,
End date of the license file,
Number of licenses that this file contains,
You can open the .slf file using notepad. After opening it, search for ‘product_name’ without quotes. You will find something like this-
<product_name> Symantec Data Loss Prevention 10.5 Endpoint Prevent
This indicates that this license file is for Symantec Data Loss Prevention ver 10.5, for its component Endpoint prevent. You can find more product_name in the file. This is because one license file may contain license for more than one product but under the purview of Symantec Data loss Prevention only (we have taken this just for example)
For start date, end date and number of licenses you can search ‘start_date’,’ end_date’ and ‘count’ respectively without quotes. You will find something like this one after the other-
<start_date>2010-11-01</start_date>
<end_date>2011-12-30</end_date>
<count>1500</count>
This indicates that start date is 1st Nov, 2010, end date is 30th Dec, 2011 and count is 1500.
There are many more information like version etc which can be looked into and can be understood.
Same technique can also be applied for other Symantec products' license as well.
WARNING- Please understand that any change made in that license file will make the file INVALID.
It is always better to check these details before applying the license file as it will prevent the pain of following the process and applying license file, and finding out later that license file is not proper.