Create a Machine Signature File

Before you generate a license file (pilicense.dat) for your Data Archive, you must first generate a Machine Signature File (MSF).

The Data Archive license manager checks that the MSF corresponds with the proper host machine for Data Archive, as detailed in your license agreement. The MSF contains machine hardware and software configuration information about the host machine that generated the MSF. You can think of the MSF as a thumbprint identifying your specific host machine.

Note: Generate the MSF on the machine you intend to host Data Archive.

If you have more than one Data Archive server in your deployment, you must generate a separate MSF on each of the host machines.

If you plan to deploy your Data Archive server within a collective, generate a MSF for the primary member of the collective only. You do not need to generate a separate MSF for the secondary members of the collective. See Generate a license for a collective deployment.

1. Download the PI Server setup kit onto your host machine. See Download the PI Server install kit.

2. Depending on your licensing scenario, generate the MSF in one of the following methods:

   • If you are installing a new Data Archive version 2015 (3.4.395) or later:

     Generate the MSF using the setup kit. Data Archive 2015 or later versions of the setup kits can generate and copy the MSF onto the host machine running the setup. This MSF correlates the host machine to the version of Data Archive being installed with the licensing agreement.

     Note: We highly recommend this method for creating the MSF file. Generating the MSF through the setup kit ensures that the MSF correlates with the machine hosting Data Archive. In addition, this ensures that the most updated version of the MSFWinGen software is used to create the MSF.

   • If you are installing a new version of Data Archive for a release earlier than Data Archive 2015:

     See the Customer Portal to request access to and assistance using the MSFWinGen tool to generate the MSF.

   • If you are upgrading the license for an existing Data Archive:

     Use the pidiag utility to generate the MSF. For most cases, We recommend creating the MSF through the PI Server setup kit. However, it may be necessary to generate the MSF using the piconfig utility instead if you are upgrading to a version of Data Archive earlier than Data Archive 2015 (3.4.395). Versions of Data Archive prior to Data Archive 2015 do not autogenerate the MSF as part of the setup process. Since you have an existing Data Archive, you have access to the pidiag utility on the host machine. See the PI Data Archive topic Generate a signature file.

3. Copy or write down the location of the generated MSF. You will need this to generate the license file. See Generate a license file.

   The MSF ends with a .msf.