After connecting to his vCenter server:
| Issue | Solution | |-------|----------| | “License not found” | Run vcenter.license.list first to confirm key format. | | “Cannot remove – assigned” | Unassign from all assets using vcenter.license.unassign then retry. | | “Insufficient capacity” | Your license doesn’t have enough CPU cores or VMs for the assigned assets. Upgrade or reduce assignments. | | “Evaluation period expired” | You never assigned a real license. Add and assign a valid key immediately. | vcenter license key command line
Best for: Managing a single standalone ESXi host, emergency maintenance, or scripted kickstart installations. After connecting to his vCenter server: | Issue
# 1. Connect to your vCenter Server $vCenter = Connect-VIServer -Server "vcenter.domain.com" -User "administrator@vsphere.local" -Password "YourPassword" # 2. Get the License Manager view $LM = Get-View ($vCenter.ExtensionData.Content.LicenseManager) # 3. Add the license key to the vCenter inventory $licenseKey = "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX" $LM.AddLicense($licenseKey, $null) # 4. Assign the license to the vCenter instance $LAM = Get-View ($LM.LicenseAssignmentManager) $LAM.UpdateAssignedLicense($vCenter.InstanceUuid, $licenseKey, $null) Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard Upgrade or reduce assignments
Once executed, the terminal will output the properties of the newly registered key. You can confirm its presence by re-running the list command outlined in the previous section. Assigning the License Key to the vCenter Server Asset
vim-cmd vimsvc/license --set 00000-00000-00000-00000-00000