[licensing] Don't cache (Replicated) license but call the kots server for each license call

[corneliusludmann]

Currently, the license is fetched from the KOTS admin server on server start. When the license has been changed, we need to restart the server.

I would propose to call the KOTS license endpoint for each license check instead of holding the license in the cache.

Drawback:

• More API calls.

However, we do not check the license that often in Gitpod. And the KOTS endpoint is in the same network. That's why I think that would be ok.

Alternative: Refetch the license regularly (e.g. once an hour or day).

[mrsimonemms]

I don't think this is needed.

KOTS automatically syncs the license between the kotsadm pod and the Replicated back-end (I think it's every 4 hours) and then prompts the user to redeploy the application with the new licence if it detects a change.

Gitpod also only checks the licence when server starts up, making an HTTP call to http://kotsadm:3000/license/v1/license. This API is never cached, meaning that if the call is made again, it will get the latest licence data (regardless of whether we've redeployed the licence via the KOTS admin page). The licence is then stored in memory.

To my mind, I would suggest keeping it as-is and letting KOTS do the heavy lifting.

[corneliusludmann]

KOTS automatically syncs the license between the kotsadm pod and the Replicated back-end (I think it's every 4 hours) and then prompts the user to redeploy the application with the new licence if it detects a change.

That's true. But does a redeploy always mean that the server restarts? A redeploy is a gitpod-installer render … | kubectl apply but when the server manifest has no changes (because it's just a license change and no Installer change) will the pod restart anyways?

[mrsimonemms]

A very good question indeed. In my testing, I've found that it does tend to restart, but there's nothing in the code that would make it intrinsically do so.

I'll need to investigate this further