Troubleshooting licenses

This document shows you how to resolve issues related to importing and migrating virtual machine (VM) instances to Compute Engine that have a misapplied license.

For example, learn how to resolve issues with a VM that has an on-demand license instead of a bring your own license (BYOL). For information about the different types of licenses, see About licenses.

Mitigate incorrect license imports or migrations

If you tried to import or migrate a VM into Compute Engine with a BYOL or BYOS license, but the VM's license string is not appended with byol or byos, then your license was not successfully imported or migrated with the VM.

To resolve this issue, do one of the following depending on how you imported or migrated the VM:

• If you imported the VM using the gcloud compute instances import command or the Cloud Build API, import the VM again, and specify the --os flag with the byol version of the OS.

• If you imported the VM using the gcloud beta compute machine-images import command, import the VM again, and specify the --byol flag.

• If you imported the VM using the gcloud beta compute images import command, import the VM again, and specify the --byol flag.

• If you migrated the VM using Migrate to Virtual Machines, contact Cloud Customer Care to help you resolve the issue. For more information, see Getting support with Cloud Customer Care.

What's next

• Learn how to view and append license strings