nomad license inspect command reference

The license inspect command is used to inspect and validate a Nomad Enterprise license. It will read the license from a file on disk or an environment variable and exit non-0 if the license is not valid with the Nomad binary.

This command should always be run with the new binary before upgrading Nomad on a server, as the server agent will not start with an invalid license.

Using this command against an IBM Passport Advantage Online (PAO) key displays the license inspect block for each Nomad entitlement included in the PAO key. Use the nomad license get command to display only the active license.

Enterprise

This feature requires Nomad Enterprise(opens in new tab).

Usage

nomad license inspect [/path/to/license.hclic]

Examples

With a license file argument:

$ nomad license inspect /path/to/nomad/license.hclic
Source: /path/to/nomad/license.hclic
Product: nomad
License ID: aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa
Customer ID: bbbbbbbb-bbbb-bbbb-bbbb-bbbbbbbbbbbb
Installation ID: *
Issue Time: 2021-12-01 17:49:23.021041516 +0000 UTC
Start Time: 2021-12-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Expiration Time: 2023-12-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Termination Time: 2024-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Build Date: 2000-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
NonProduction: False
Flags: {
   "modules": [
      "multicluster-and-efficiency",
      "governance-policy"
   ]
}

Validation Checks:
   ✓ All checks passed

With a license file environment variable:

$ export NOMAD_LICENSE_PATH=/path/to/nomad/license.hclic
$ nomad license inspect
Source: /path/to/nomad/license.hclic (path from the NOMAD_LICENSE_PATH environment variable)
Product: nomad
.....
Validation Checks:
   ✓ All checks passed

With a license string environment variable:

$ export NOMAD_LICENSE=full-license-text-string
$ nomad license inspect
Source: NOMAD_LICENSE environment variable
.....
Validation Checks:
   ✓ All checks passed

Example error

$ nomad license inspect license.hclic
...
Validation Checks:
      ✗ License ExpirationDate must be after Version BuildDate
        binary build date is not before license expiration. binary's build date: "2026-03-16T15:58:56Z", license expiration date: "2025-10-19T23:59:59Z", checked at: "2026-03-23T08:36:06-07:00"