Poor Oakley Capital only rakes in millions a year from WHMCS licensing fees, and they have to pay themselves fat salaries, so there’s little money left over to maintain the product.

What are we talking about?  WHMCS’s license verification tool.

The way it works – in theory – is that you type in a domain name and if that site is using a cracked or nulled version of WHMCS, the site will be reported as unauthorized. In red, even, so you know it’s serious:

The theory here is that legitimate users who pay enormous sums to WHMCS will be outraged if they come across a site that is using WHMCS for free, so they’ll tattle.  It’s a little weird because enforcing its licenses is WHMCS’s job.  It sends a message that WHMCS’s license enforcement is weak or that perhaps the software is easily cracked.  To my knowledge, all security rests with ionCube encoding.  The security of that encryption is a matter of opinion.

The Only Problem: WHMCS License Verification Doesn’t Work

At one time, we used to routinely check WHMCS licenses for hosts on LowEndTalk and LowEndBox, but we stopped because there are so many false positives that it’s a worthless tool.

The issue appears to be that if the admin doesn’t login to his WHMCS often enough, the system will flag it as unauthorized.  Even when he does, he may still have to manually force a reissue of the license once WHMCS has flagged it as bad.

We just had a round of “OMG this host is using WHMCS and it’s cracked!!!!1!!” on LowEndTalk.  There’s been discussion threads elsewhere (WHT), and we’ve discussed it on LowEndBox before.  It’s even discussed in WHMCS’s own forum.

Begin Rant

You’d think that a company which has the financial heft of WHMCS’s backers would be able to fix basic bugs in their software.  Instead, they shrug.  There are so many WHMCS alternatives that users should consider before throwing more money at this miserable company.

End Rant

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.