Citadel License & Subscription

Your Citadel subscription unlocks the desktop app on up to 2 devices. This page covers how activation works, how to manage devices, what happens when your subscription lapses, and how offline grace works.

How activation works

  Citadel desktop app                  cloud.citadel-hub.com
 ┌──────────────────┐                ┌────────────────┐
 │ Enter email + pw │ ──activate──▶  │ Verify password │
 │ + Windows GUID   │                │ + active sub?   │
 │                  │ ◀──RS256 JWT── │ + device slot?  │
 │ Cache token      │                └────────────────┘
 │                  │
 │ Every 6h:        │
 │ refresh ────────▶│ check status
 └──────────────────┘

The desktop calls POST /api/v1/license/activate on cloud.citadel-hub.com with your credentials and a stable Windows identifier (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\MachineGuid). On success, cloud.citadel-hub.com returns an RS256-signed JWT tied to this specific machine. Citadel caches it in C:\Citadel\data\license.json and refreshes every 6 hours.

Your 2-device limit

Each cloud.citadel-hub.com account gets 2 active device slots. This works for:

Home server + backup box
Dev environment + production
Two different DayZ communities

To use a 3rd machine, revoke one of the first two from either:

The Citadel dashboard: Sidebar → Subscription → Deactivate this machine
cloud.citadel-hub.com: Account → Devices → 🗑 next to the device you want to replace

Revoking frees the slot immediately. The revoked machine's Citadel enters unactivated mode on its next verify call.

Offline grace

Citadel validates the cached token locally using an embedded public key. You can run up to 7 days without internet before activation is required again. After the grace window, the app enters read-only mode until it can reach cloud.citadel-hub.com for a fresh verify.

This is intentional — it means a brief network blip or a DDoS against cloud.citadel-hub.com won't take your DayZ management offline.

Subscription states

Status	What it means	What the desktop app does
Active	Subscription is paid and current	Everything works
Grace	Token valid locally but we haven't hit the server in >6h	Everything works; yellow banner asking you to reconnect
Past due	Payment failed, Stripe is retrying	Everything still works during the retry window (up to 14 days); yellow banner prompts you to update payment
Canceled	You (or we) canceled the subscription	Works until the paid period ends, then flips to Lapsed
Lapsed	Subscription ended — no grace left	Read-only mode; red banner with "Reactivate" button

You'll never lose access to your server configs, mods, or backups in any state — those are stored locally and belong to you. You just can't make changes when Lapsed.

Managing your subscription

All billing is handled by Stripe. From cloud.citadel-hub.com/account you can open the Stripe Customer Portal, where you can:

Update your payment method
Download past invoices
Change from monthly to yearly (or vice-versa)
Cancel (takes effect at the end of the current period)

Refunds

We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on first-time subscriptions. Email [email protected] with your order ID (on your receipt) and we'll process the refund through Stripe.

Security notes

Your cloud.citadel-hub.com password is bcrypt-hashed server-side — we can't read it
The RS256 private key that signs license tokens lives only on the cloud.citadel-hub.com server
The public key embedded in the Citadel desktop app verifies token signatures — it can't sign new tokens
license.json on disk contains only the signed token, no credentials. Safe to back up but not particularly sensitive.
Revoking a device invalidates its token on our side — even if someone copies license.json, the next refresh will fail.

Troubleshooting

"Subscription is not active" on activate — Check your status at cloud.citadel-hub.com/account. If it says Active there but the desktop says otherwise, try signing out and back in on cloud.citadel-hub.com to refresh the session, then re-activate.

"Device limit reached (2)" — See Your 2-device limit above.

Banner says "Grace mode" even with internet — The background refresh runs every 6h and on service start. Click Refresh on the Subscription page to force an immediate check. If it still fails, firewall may be blocking https://cloud.citadel-hub.com on port 443.

Token renewal fails silently — Check C:\Citadel\data\service.log for lines with license. Common causes: clock skew on your server (JWT has a 60s tolerance), proxy breaking TLS, or cloud.citadel-hub.com downtime (check status.cloud.citadel-hub.com — if reachable you're fine).

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