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ArrowFEBE — Licensing

ArrowFEBE is a proprietary Arpeio driver. The binary is free to download, and it validates an Arpeio licence at connection time. This page is about supplying your licence — where to put it and how to check it. To obtain a licence, contact sales@arpe.io or see https://www.arpe.io.

The same licence mechanism and the shared ARPEIO_ADBC_* environment variables are used by every driver in the family (ArrowTDS, ArrowFEBE, ArrowTTC, ArrowDRDA), so one licence setup carries across them.

The gate is always enforced — there is no build-time off switch, so a .so/.dll lifted out of a host bundle is inert on its own.

Where the driver looks for a licence​

At AdbcDatabaseInit (re-checked at AdbcConnectionInit) the driver resolves a licence from the following sources, in order — the first present source wins:

  1. arpeio.adbc.license — ADBC database option, the licence blob inline.
  2. arpeio.adbc.license_file — ADBC database option, path to a .lic file.
  3. ARPEIO_ADBC_LICENCE — environment variable, the licence blob inline.
  4. ARPEIO_ADBC_LICENCE_FILE — environment variable, path to a .lic file.
  5. arpeio_adbc.lic — a file placed next to the driver library (libarrowfebe_adbc_driver.so / arrowfebe_adbc_driver.dll).

Note the British spelling LICENCE in the environment-variable names.

If none of these yields a valid licence, the connection fails with an ARROW_LIC_* error (see Troubleshooting).

The easy path: the installer places it for you​

The Arpeio installer copies your licence next to the driver as arpeio_adbc.lic (source #5), so no option or environment variable is needed at runtime:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arpe-io/adbc-drivers/main/install.sh \
  | sh -s -- arrowfebe --license ./arpeio_adbc.lic

--license-content "<blob>" works too (handy in CI — but note it is visible in the process list). See the install guide for details.

Supplying it yourself​

As an ADBC option (keeps it out of the environment):

Python
import adbc_driver_manager.dbapi as dbapi

conn = dbapi.connect(driver="arrowfebe", db_kwargs={
    "adbc.arrowfebe.server":    "localhost",
    "adbc.arrowfebe.database":  "tpch",
    "adbc.arrowfebe.username":  "alice",
    "adbc.arrowfebe.password":  "<password>",
    "arpeio.adbc.license_file": "/etc/arpeio/arpeio_adbc.lic",
}, autocommit=True)

As an environment variable (one setting for every Arpeio driver in the process):

export ARPEIO_ADBC_LICENCE_FILE=/etc/arpeio/arpeio_adbc.lic
# or the blob inline:
export ARPEIO_ADBC_LICENCE="$(cat /etc/arpeio/arpeio_adbc.lic)"

Embedding tools (FastBCP, FastTransfer, …) forward their own licence into one of these sources automatically — you normally do not configure the driver licence separately when using them.

Checking the licence state​

Read the current state with the read-only arpeio.adbc.license.status database option (via GetOption):

Python
status = conn.adbc_connection._native_option("arpeio.adbc.license.status")
# -> "<state>;code=<ARROW_LIC_*>;tier=<tier>;expires=<epoch>"

The value reports the state, the result code, the licence tier, and the expiry as a Unix epoch. A grace-period warning is also emitted as the licence nears expiry.

Troubleshooting​

Connection fails with ARROW_LIC_*. No valid licence was found by any of the five sources above, or the licence has expired / does not cover this driver.

  • Confirm the file exists and is readable at the path you configured.
  • If you rely on the file-next-to-the-library fallback, confirm arpeio_adbc.lic really sits in the same directory as the loaded .so/.dll (the loaded one — a stale copy elsewhere on the path won't count).
  • Check expiry and tier via arpeio.adbc.license.status.
  • Contact sales@arpe.io for a renewal or a licence covering additional drivers.

Test and CI builds set -DARROWFEBE_LICENSE_TEST_KEY=ON and self-mint a token offline. A driver built with the test key is never shipped — production binaries validate a real Arpeio licence.

See also​