Upgrading / applying a new license for ASA (CLI and GUI)

To register a license on your device we can either activate the key from privileged mode on the CLI:

activation-key xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

When generating a new license we are required to provide the devices serial - this can be obtained as follows:

show version | include serial

Alternatively we can also activate the license from within ASDM:

ASDM >> Device Management >> Licensing >> Activation Key.

You will need to reload the device once the license has been applied.

Note: Some newer versions of IOS now only support smart-licensing - which requires a remote connection to Cisco's activation servers. So instead you have to run:

licensing smart register <id-token>