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Modules Requiring License Acceptance

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SYNOPSIS

Legal departments for some module publishers require that customers must explicitly accept the license before installing their module from PowerShell Gallery. If a user installs, updates, or saves a module using PowerShellGet, whether directly or as a dependency for another package, and that module requires the user to agree to a license, the user must indicate they accept the license or the operation fails.

Publish Requirements for Modules

Modules that would like to require users to accept license should fulfill following requirements:

  • PSData section of module manifest should include RequireLicenseAcceptance = $True.
  • Module should contain license.txt file in root directory.
  • Module manifest should contain License Uri.
  • Module should be published with PowerShellGet Format Version 2.0 and above.

Impact on Install/Save/Update-Module

  • Install/Save/Update cmdlets support a new parameter AcceptLicense that behaves as though the user saw the license.
  • If RequiredLicenseAcceptance is True and AcceptLicense is not specified, the user is shown the license.txt, and prompted with: Do you accept these license terms (Yes/No/YesToAll/NoToAll).
    • If the license is accepted
      • Save-Module: the module is copied to the user's system
      • Install-Module: the module is copied to the user's system to the proper folder (based on scope)
      • Update-Module: the module is updated.
    • If the license is declined.
      • Operation is canceled.
      • All cmdlets check for the metadata (requireLicenseAcceptance and Format Version) that says a license acceptance is required
      • If format version of client is older than 2.0, operation fails and asks the user to update the client.
      • If module was published with format version older than 2.0, requireLicenseAcceptance flag is ignored.

Module Dependencies

  • During Install/Save/Update operation, if a dependent module(something else depends on the module) requires license acceptance, then the license acceptance behavior (above) is required.
  • If the module version is already listed in the local catalog as being installed on the system, we would bypass the license checking.
  • During Install/Save/Update operation, if a dependent module requires a license, and the license acceptance does not occur, the operation fails and follows normal processes for the package failed to install/save/update.

Impact on -Force

Specifying –Force is NOT sufficient to accept a license. –AcceptLicense is required for permission to install. If –Force is specified, RequiredLicenseAcceptance is True, and –AcceptLicense is NOT specified, the operation fails.

EXAMPLES

Example 1: Update Module Manifest to require license acceptance

Update-ModuleManifest -Path C:\modulemanifest.psd1 -RequireLicenseAcceptance -PrivateData @{
    PSData = @{
        # Flag to indicate whether the module requires explicit user acceptance
        RequireLicenseAcceptance = $true
    } # End of PSData hashtable

 } # End of PrivateData hashtable

This command updates the manifest file and sets the RequireLicenseAcceptance flag to true.

Example 2: Install Module requiring license acceptance

Install-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance

License Acceptance

License 2.0
Copyright (c) 2016 PowerShell Team
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software.

Do you accept the license terms for module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"):

This command shows the license from license.txt file and prompts the user to accept the license.

Example 3: Install Module requiring license acceptance with -AcceptLicense

Install-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance -AcceptLicense

Module is installed without any prompt to accept license.

Example 4: Install Module requiring license acceptance with -Force

Install-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance -Force

PackageManagement\Install-Package : License Acceptance is required for module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'. Please specify '-AcceptLicense' to perform this operation.
At C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PowerShellGet\1.1.3.3\PSModule.psm1:1837 char:21
+ ...          $null = PackageManagement\Install-Package @PSBoundParameters
+                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (Microsoft.Power....InstallPackage:InstallPackage) [Install-Package], E
   xception
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ForceAcceptLicense,Install-PackageUtility,Microsoft.PowerShell.PackageManagement.Cmdlets
   .InstallPackage

Example 5: Install Module with dependencies requiring license acceptance

Module ModuleWithDependency depends on module ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance. User is prompted to accept license.

Install-Module -Name ModuleWithDependency

License Acceptance
MIT License 2.0
Copyright (c) 2016 PowerShell Team
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software.

Do you accept the license terms for module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"):

Example 6: Install Module with dependencies requiring license acceptance and -AcceptLicense

Module ModuleWithDependency depends on module ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance. User is not prompted to accept license as AcceptLicense is specified.

Install-Module -Name ModuleWithDependency -AcceptLicense

Example 7: Install module requiring license acceptance on a client older than PSGetFormatVersion 2.0

Install-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance

WARNING: The specified module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance' with PowerShellGetFormatVersion
'2.0' is not supported by the current version of PowerShellGet. Get the latest version of the
PowerShellGet module to install this module, 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'.

Example 8: Save Module requiring license acceptance

Save-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance -Path C:\Saved

License Acceptance

License 2.0
Copyright (c) 2016 PowerShell Team
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software.

Do you accept the license terms for module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"):

This command shows the license from license.txt file and prompts the user to accept the license.

Example 9: Save Module requiring license acceptance with -AcceptLicense

Save-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance -AcceptLicense -Path C:\Saved

Module is saved without any prompt to accept license.

Example 10: Update Module requiring license acceptance

Update-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance

License Acceptance

License 2.0
Copyright (c) 2016 PowerShell Team
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software.

Do you accept the license terms for module 'ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance'.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"):

This command shows the license from license.txt file and prompts the user to accept the license.

Example 11: Update Module requiring license acceptance with -AcceptLicense

Update-Module -Name ModuleRequireLicenseAcceptance -AcceptLicense

Module is updated without any prompt to accept license.

More details

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