VLMCS(1)

NAME
vlmcs - a client for testing and/or charging KMS servers

SYNOPSIS
vlmcs [ options ] [ target ] [ options ]

target can be one of the following:

    hostname|ipaddress[:tcp-port] to query a specific KMS server (example: vlmcs kms.example.com:1688).
    .domain to automatically detect KMS servers via DNS for domain (example: vlmcs .example.com). Please note the dot before domain.
    - (a single dash) to detect KMS servers in your own domain.
If you use ipaddress:port as the target, the ipaddress must be enclosed in brackets if it contains colons, e.g. [2001:db8:dead:beef::1]:1688. If you use a link-local IPv6 address on Unix systems, you must append a percent sign and the interface identifier of the source interface, for example fe80::dead:beef%eth0.

If you omit the target, 127.0.0.1:1688 will be used except if you use -i6. In this case the default target is [::1]:1688.

DESCRIPTION
vlmcs is a program that can be used to test a KMS server that provides activation for several Microsoft products. The KMS server may also be an emulator. It supports KMS protocol versions 4, 5 and 6.

vlmcs generates one or more activation requests for a Microsoft KMS product and sends it to a KMS server. It then analyzes and displays the responses of the KMS server.

vlcms checks both the DCE-RPC protocol and the activation message for correctness and reports any errors that it finds.

vlmcs can also be used to "charge" a KMS server. A Microsoft KMS server sends correct activation messages only if it detects a certain minimum of clients (25 for Windows client OSses, 5 otherwise) on the network. This is Microsoft's futile attempt to prevent running a KMS server in a home environment.

OPTIONS

-h or -?
    Show help.

-V  Displays extended version information. This includes the compiler used to build vlmcs, the intended platform and flags (compile time options) to build vlmcs. If you have the source code of vlmcsd, you can type make help (or gmake help on systems that do not use the GNU version of make(1) by default) to see the meaning of those flags.

-x  Show valid applications that can be used with -l.

-e  Show some examples how to use vlmcs correctly.

-v  Be verbose. Instead of just displaying the returned ePID and the HwId (protocol v6 only) vlmcsd shows all details of the query and the response.

-l application
    Request activation for a specific application. Valid applications can be displayed by using -x. The default application is Windows Vista Business. The list of available applications is not complete. You may supply GUIDs with -a, -k and -s to specify applications that are not listed with -x. The -l option is used as a shortcut for the most common applications.

-K protocol-version
    Force a specific version of the KMS protocol. Valid versions are 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0. The default is to select a suitable version according to the application selected. You may use -K to send an incorrect protocol version to the KMS server and see how it behaves. Genuine KMS servers return HRESULT 0x8007000D if the KMS protocol is not 4.0, 5.0 or 6.0. Emulators should do the same. When sending a request with an incorrect protocol number, vlmcs ignores the minor protocol number (e.g. sends a v4 request for version 4.1). If the major version number is less then 4, it sends a v4 request. If the major version is greater then 6, is sends a v6 request. In any case the protocol-version as specified by -K is put in the version fields of the request.

-4, -5 and -6
    Force version 4, 5 or 6 of the KMS protocol. These options are actually shortcuts of -K 4.0, -K 5.0 and -K 6.0.

-m  Let the client pretend to be a virtual machine. Early versions of Microsoft's KMS server did not increase the client count if the request came from a virtual machine. Newer versions ignore this flag.

-d  Use NetBIOS names instead of DNS names. By default vlmcsd generates some random DNS names for each request. If you prefer NetBIOS names, you may use -d. A real Microsoft activation client uses DNS names or NetBIOS depending on the client name configuration. KMS servers treat the workstation name as a comment that affects logging only. Clients will be identified by a GUID that can be specified using -c. -d has no effect if you also specify -w.

-a application-guid
    Send requests with a specific application-guid. There are currently only three known valid application-guids:

    55c92734-d682-4d71-983e-d6ec3f16059f (Windows)
    59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 (Office 2010)
    0ff1ce15-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 (Office 2013)

    A Microsoft KMS server uses these GUIDs to have seperate counters for the already activated clients. A client that does not contact the KMS server within 30 days will be deleted from the database. Emulated KMS servers are always fully charged.

-k kms-guid
    Send requests with a specific kms-guid. A Microsoft KMS server uses these GUIDs as a product id to decide whether to grant activation or not. A list of current kms-guids can be found in kms.c (table KmsIdList). Emulated KMS servers grant activation unconditionally and do not check the kms-guid.

-s activation-guid
    The activation-guid defines the actual product, e.g. "Windows 8.1 Professional WMC KMSCLIENT edition". A activation-guid maps 1:1 to a product key. However, neither a Microsoft KMS server nor emulated servers check this id. The activation-guid is useful in logging to get a specific product description like "Windows 8.1 Professional WMC". A list of current activation-guids can be found in kms.c (table ExtendedProductList).

-n requests
    Send requests requests to the server. The default is to send at least one request and enough subsequent requests that the server is fully charged afterwards for the application-guid you selected (explicitly with -a or implicitly by using -l).

-T  Causes to use a new TCP connection for each request if multiple requests are sent with vlmcsd. This is useful when you want to test an emulated KMS server whether it suffers from memory leaks. To test for memory leaks use -n with a large number of requests (> 100000) and then test twice (with and without -T). This option may become neccessary for future versions of Microsoft's KMS server because multiple requests with different clients-guids for the same kms-id-guid are impossible in a real KMS szenario over the same TCP connection.

-c client-machine-guid
    Normally vlmcs generates a random client-machine-guid for each request. By using this option you can specify a fixed client-machine-guid This causes a Microsoft KMS not to increment its client count because it receives multiple requests for the same client. Thus do not use -c if you want to charge a real KMS server.

-o previous-client-machine-guid
    If the client-machine-guid changes for some reason, the real KMS client stores a previous-client-machine-guid which is sent to the KMS server. This happens rarely and usually 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 is used. You can use -o to specify a different previous-client-machine-guid.

-G filename
    Grabs ePIDs and HWIDs from a KMS server and writes the information to filename in format suitable to be used as a configuration file (aka ini file) for vlmcsd(8). This is especially useful if you have access to a genuine KMS server and want to use the same data with vlmcsd(8). If filename does not exist, it will be created. If you specify an existing filename, it will be updated to use the information received from the remote KMS server and a backup filename~ will be created. -G cannot be used with -l, -4, -5, -6, -a, -s, -k, -r and -n

-w workstation-name
    Send requests with a specific workstation-name. This disables the random generator for the workstation name. Since it is a comment only, this option does not have much effect.

-r required-client-count
    Also known as the "N count policy". Tells the KMS server that successful activation requires required-client-count clients. The default is the required-client-count that the product would need if the request was a real activation. A Microsoft KMS server counts clients up to the double amount what was specified with -r. This option can be used to "overcharge" a Microsoft KMS server.

-t status
    Reports a specific license status to the KMS server. status is a number that can be from 0 to 6. 0=unlicensed, 1=licensed, 2=OOB grace, 3=OOT grace, 4=Non-genuinue grace, 5=notification, 6=extended grace. Refer to for more information. A Microsoft KMS server collects this information for statistics only.

-g binding-expiration
    This tells the KMS server how long a client will stay in its current license status. This can be the remaining OOB time (the grace peroid that is granted between installation of a product and when activation is actuall required) or the remaining time when KMS activation must be renewed. binding-expiration is specified in minutes. A Microsoft KMS server apparantly does not use this information.

-i protocol-version
    Force the use of Internet protocol protocol-version. Allowed values are 4 (IPv4) and 6 (IPv6). This option is useful only if you specfiy a hostname and not an ip-address on the command line.

-p  Do not set the RPC_PF_MULTIPLEX flag in the RPC bind request. This can be used to test if the KMS server uses the same setting of this flag in the RPC bind respone. Some KMS emulators don't set this correctly.

-N0 and -N1
    Disables (-N0) or enables (-N1) the NDR64 transfer syntax in the RPC protocol. Disable NDR64 only in case of problems. If NDR64 is not used, vlmcs cannot detect many RPC protocol errors in KMS emulators. If you want to test whether a KMS emulator fully supports NDR64, you must use the -n option to send at least two requests. This is because Microsoft's client always sends the first request using NDR32 syntax and subsequent requests using NDR64 syntax.

-B0 and -B1
    Disables (-B0) or enables (-B1) bind time feature negotiation (BTFN) in the RPC protocol. Disable BTFN only in case of problems. If BTFN is not used, vlmcs cannot detect many RPC protocol errors in KMS emulators.

Options that do not require an argument can be specified together with a single dash, e.g. vlmcs -6mvT. If you specify an option more than once, the last occurence will be in effect.

FILES

vlmcsd.ini(5)

EXAMPLES

vlmcs kms.example.com
    Request activation for Windows Vista using v4 protocol from kms.example.com. Repeat activation requests until server is charged for all Windows products.

vlmcs -
    Request activation for Windows Vista using v4 protocol from a KMS server that is published via DNS for the current domain.

vlmcs .example.com
    Request activation for Windows Vista using v4 protocol from a KMS server that is published via DNS for domain example.com.

vlmcs -6 -l Office2013 -v -n 1
    Request exactly one activation for Office2013 using v6 protocol from localhost. Display verbose results.

vlmcs kms.bigcompany.com -G /etc/vlmcsd.ini
    Get ePIDs and HWIDs from kms.bigcompany.com and create/update /etc/vlmcsd.ini accordingly.

BUGS
Some platforms (e.g. Solaris) may have a man(7) system that does not handle URLs. URLs may be omitted in the documentation on those platforms. Cygwin, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X are known to work correctly.

AUTHOR
Written by Hotbird64

CREDITS
Thanks to CODYQX4, crony12, deagles, DougQaid, eIcn, mikmik38, nosferati87, qad, Ratiborus, vityan666, ...

SEE ALSO
vlmcsd(7), vlmcsd(8), vlmcsdmulti(1)