Activation of new Host failed due to trial end - now stuck

Checkmk Version
2.2.0p9

OS version:
Debian Bookworm

Error message:
Activation failed:

Started at: 14:42:05. Finished at: 14:42:08.
Error running automation call restart (exit code 1), error:

An error occurred: Error creating configuration: Trial period ended: ‘Activate changes’ is blocked
Your trial period has ended, and your license state is automatically converted to ‘Free’. In this license state, your maximum total service limit is 750 which you exceed with 779 services. Until you reduce the number of services, ‘Activate changes’ is blocked.
If you want to use Checkmk with all configured services, please enter the license details or purchase a license.

Output of “cmk --debug -vvn hostname”: (If it is a problem with checks or plugins)

I would like to remove some serivces, unfortunately this cannot be activated as well, since I am stuck on the activation in the step before. I am still waiting for approval in my department to go ahead and order a valid license. Help is appreceated.
BR

Hi @malgates

welcome to the forum!

You can change the monitoring core back to the raw edition core on the command line. Some Enterprise features won’t work (that’s kind of the point), but it gets you unstuck.

Read more here (linking already to the right section):

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Actually, I think it might be even easier than that: Migration to the CMC - Switching from Nagios to the Checkmk Micro Core

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Unfortunately not, the core itself does not have to do with licensing. Your first approach is better suited. This will lose some settings and historical monitoring data, but keeps the whole thing running.

Then there is the possibility to delete hosts from the file system itself, see Robert’s answer here: Error for expiring trial perio

Note to myself: We have to document this somewhere, and maybe provide some up-to-date scripts for doing so.

Hi Elias,

thx. Followed the instrcutions to go to RAW edition.

Other than this the update went fine.
-| Unknown error on pre update action.
-| Error: Cannot read configuration file /omd/sites/rdklab/etc/check_mk/multisite.d/licensing_settings.mk: name ‘licensing_settings’ is not defined:
-|
ERROR (exit code: 1)

After that I started the site again and “omd status” tells me all is fine, but the site no longer comes up. Apache is still running. Any ideas? Also I get automatically pushed forward to https://ip/mysite/check_mk with an error 500.

Hmmm not a problem I though, since I have a backup

BUT: after restoring the backup to a new site I am getting:

agent-receiver: stopped
mkeventd: running
liveproxyd: running
mknotifyd: running
rrdcached: running
cmc: stopped
apache: running
dcd: running
redis: running
crontab: running

Starting cmc…2023-11-01 14:06:29 [0] [core 2544] cannot open state file “/omd/sites/rdklab/var/check_mk/core/state.pb”: Permission denied

cmc is linked to my old site called “rdklab”. I created a temporary site calles “rdklab2”

Any hints?

Also my backup is now gone. Really? It was in the /tmp folder. Does omd delete backups after a restore?

Most Linux distributions delete the /tmp directory upon reboot.
Checkmk only deletes a backup, after the next backup has run successfully.

Is there a way to remove unnecessary services and proceed further with out switching to raw edition?

hi @guglez

welcome to the forum.

If you are still within your trial period, you can simply remove the services from monitoring, to fall under the threshold for the free tier. Read how to do this here: Understanding and configuring services - Detecting and monitoring elements of a host

If your trial has expired, and you are over the threshold, so you can’t activate changes anymore, I don’t think that will work.