Can I use HTTPS certificates for licensing?

Question

I am working on an application with several clients and a server that runs various web services for clients. To implement licensing, I’m thinking about using HTTPS as a protocol for web services using certificates issued by our company. Depending on the expiration date of the certificate for the client, we may prevent them from using our software after the license has expired.

Is this possible and does it make sense to you?

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Additional Information: I plan to use Qt / C ++ for clients and the Twisted framework for web services.

Answer 1

It should work. I don't know Twisted very well, but you can place an Apache proxy in front of the web service and handle certificate-based authentication .

As for the client side, look at this error . libcurl should provide you with an escape route if Qt gives you problems.

You will need to think through the procedures around the CA to make sure that it works quickly. Are your sales and billing departments satisfied with a fixed cut-off date for each customer? Will a certificate be issued on a purchase order or invoice payment?

Answer 2

, , , RemoteCertificateValidationCallback System.Net.Security

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.security.remotecertificatevalidationcallback.aspx