Discovery of the Licensing Service

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

The RMS licensing service issues use licenses, which allow authenticated users to consume rights-protected content.

This service runs on the root cluster and licensing-only clusters. To make a use license request, a client first retrieves the URL to the root cluster's Licensing virtual directory, where the licensing service is located, from Active Directory. It then appends the path to the licensing service.

For example, the URL to the root cluster's Licensing virtual directory is stored in Active Directory in the following form:

https://server_name/_wmcs/Licensing

When a server requests a use license, it appends the licensing service file name to the URL, as follows:

https://server_name/_wmcs/Licensing/License.asmx

The service location is either the RMS server or the .NET Passport account that issued the publishing license; the URL is included in the publishing license.

Note

If you have enabled SSL on the servers in the RMS cluster, these URLs will use the https:// connection protocol.