threshold/website/content/docs/enterprise/licensing.mdx

---
layout: docs
page_title: License Boundary Enterprise
description: >-
  Learn how to enable Boundary Enterprise with a valid license. Request access from an account team to enable enterprise features.
---

# License Boundary Enterprise

The Boundary Enterprise binaries require a license key to enforce entitlements and time restrictions according to your contractual agreement.
Once purchased, your HashiCorp account team send you a valid Boundary license for environment activation.
If you don't yet have an acccount team, but are interested in Boundary Enterprise, you can request access [here](https://www.hashicorp.com/contact-sales).

Once you have received your valid Boundary license, there are two options for enabling Boundary Enterprise:

1. You may set the enterprise license for Boundary using an environment variable.
Set the `BOUNDARY_LICENSE` environment variable to the license key value you received:

   `$ export BOUNDARY_LICENSE=02MV4UU43BK5...`

   or

   `$ BOUNDARY_LICENSE=file:///folder_path/license.hclic`

1. You may specify the enterprise license key in the Boundary controller configuration using the `license` attribute in the `controller` block.
You can either specify the raw license key or the path to a file containing the license key.
Refer to the sample configurations below:

   **Sample #1**

   ```hcl
   controller {
     name = "controller"
     description = "controller"
     database {
       url = "postgresql://boundary:PASSWORD@127.0.0.1:5432/boundary"
     }
     public_cluster_addr = "boundary.domain"
     license = "file:///folder_path/license.hclic"
   }
   ```
   **Sample #2**

   ```hcl
   controller {
     name = "controller"
     description = "controller"
     database {
       url = "postgresql://boundary:PASSWORD@127.0.0.1:5432/boundary"
     }
     public_cluster_addr = "boundary.domain"
     license = "02MV4UU43BK5..."
   }
   ```

   Refer to the [controller](/boundary/docs/configuration/controller) configuration  documentation for more information.