Alternative methods to install your Nexus Repository 2 license

Nexus Repository 2 officially sunsetted June 30, 2025. Visit my.sonatype.com for archived documentation. Migrate to Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 as soon as possible.

This article applies to Nexus Repository 2 only.

Nexus Repository 2: In some configurations, there were problems uploading a Sonatype Nexus Repository 2 license file using the user interface.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you should be able to upload your license file using a common command line utility called curl to bypass the UI entirely.

Option 1: Uploading a License file Using REST

Example uploading a license file to Sonatype Nexus Repository Professional:

> curl -v -F "file=@your-license-file.lic" -u admin:admin123 "http://localhost:8081/nexus/service/local/licensing"
* About to connect() to localhost port 8081 (#0)
*   Trying ::1...
* Adding handle: conn: 0x7f8ab2803000
* Adding handle: send: 0
* Adding handle: recv: 0
* Curl_addHandleToPipeline: length: 1
* - Conn 0 (0x7f8ab2803000) send_pipe: 1, recv_pipe: 0
* Connected to localhost (::1) port 8081 (#0)
* Server auth using Basic with user 'admin'
> POST /nexus/service/local/licensing/request.html HTTP/1.1
> Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4xMjM=
> User-Agent: curl/7.32.0
> Host: localhost:8081
> Accept: */*
> Content-Length: 3269
> Expect: 100-continue
> Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------------------------599c88cde3474225
> 
< HTTP/1.1 100 Continue
< HTTP/1.1 201 Created
< Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 13:12:32 GMT
< Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 13:12:34 GMT
* Server Noelios-Restlet-Engine/1.1.6-SONATYPE-5348-V8 is not blacklisted
< Server: Noelios-Restlet-Engine/1.1.6-SONATYPE-5348-V8
< Content-Length: 0
< 
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact 

Option 2: Copying the license file into place

The Sonatype Nexus Repository license is stored in the Java user preferences store directory on Linux and Mac OSX. This solution will not work for Windows, as the license is stored in the Windows Registry there.

Once installed, on Linux the product license can be found in the home directory of the user running Nexus Repository at this location:

~/.java/.userPrefs/com/sonatype/nexus/professional/prefs.xml

So you can install the license through the UI on one host and then just copy that file over to a new host or different user account and you'll have an installed license for that user account.

wrapper.java.additional.1=-XX:MaxPermSize=192m
wrapper.java.additional.2=-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
wrapper.java.additional.3=-Dcom.sun.jndi.ldap.connect.pool.protocol="plain ssl"
wrapper.java.additional.3.stripquotes=TRUE

wrapper.java.additional.4=-Djava.util.prefs.userRoot=<absolute-path-to-already-created-directory>