Deploying and licensing EndNote X8

As previously discussed, a number of folks in my shop use Clarivate Analytics’s EndNote bibliography software. Clarivate Analytics provides EndNote X8 with an installer application, but I need an installer package in order to easily deploy it to my customers. EndNote X8 was initially problematic in that regard, but I was able to write AutoPkg recipes for EndNote X8 to handle converting Clarivate Analytics’s installer application into a deployable installer package, including a recipe that would automate uploading the latest EndNote installers to my Casper server.

Once AutoPkg was able to provide an EndNote X8 installer package for deployment, the remaining hurdle was that the EndNote X8 installer from AutoPkg installs an unlicensed copy of EndNote and I needed to have installed copies of EndNote automatically use my shop’s EndNote site license.

Fortunately, EndNote X8’s volume license can be deployed just like EndNote X7’s volume license. The volume license is stored in as an invisible file named .license.dat in /Applications/EndNote X8  and it has a format that looks like this:

Company Name
1234567890
V2ZMQT6556P8WMH38MTQ6YSM8UXCCRYQ5MDS4WJGLKMP7RGSWECBCMT77556P8WCE8KMTQ6YSMNXJCCRYQ59MD9WJGLKMCSESSWECBCMB76556P8WCU3NMTQ6YSMLUYCCRYQ5MET8WJGLKMPSMJSWECBCM57F556P8WCU3CMTQ6YSM9DECCRYQ59XSCWJGLKMPNE9SWECBCMB79556P8WCH8KMTQ6YSMDXECCRYQ5MTSMWJGLKMPYRMSWECBCB7W7556P8W

Note: The Company Name part may show up twice in your .license.dat file.

With some additional testing, I found that I could remove an existing .license.dat file (if one was present) and replace it with my shop’s site license’s .license.dat file. That allowed me to use the EndNote X8 installer produced by AutoPkg by having Casper install it, then apply our site license file as a post-installation action. For more details, see below the jump.

For my post-installation licensing, I’ve developed a script that does the following:

1. Checks for the presence of an existing .license.dat file in /Applications/EndNote X8.
2. If an existing .license.dat file is found, it is removed from /Applications/EndNote X8.
3. A new .license.dat file is created with the data from my shop’s .license.dat file and stored in /Applications/EndNote X8.
4. The permissions on the new .license.dat file are changed so that it is read-write only by the license file’s owner. If this script is run with root privileges, the owner will be root.

The script is available below.

The script is also available on Github at the following address:

https://github.com/rtrouton/rtrouton_scripts/tree/master/rtrouton_scripts/set_endnote_volume_license/set_endnote_8_volume_license