Installing a KMS activation server - vlmcsd

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational and informational purposes only. In a real project, you need to use official activation methods from Microsoft. The author of the article condemns the use of unlicensed software in any form.

Let's continue. You might be familiar with the KMS emulator program that runs as an exe file on workstations. This is, to put it mildly, not safe, as evidenced by antivirus blocking this program (any unofficial exe program with closed source code is unsafe). Today we will learn how to activate any device on the network in a very simple way.

On GitHub, there is an open-source project that allows you to run a KMS emulator within a network. Essentially, it is a KMS server emulator, originally created to activate multiple devices within a large network.

The project is called vlmcsd (https://github.com/Wind4/vlmcsd) and it allows you to install a KMS server not on Windows, but on Linux (or any other OS), thus significantly saving computational resources.

In this article, I will tell you how to install this KMS server as a Docker container, and also how to set up automatic activation of Windows Server, Windows, and Microsoft Office, and forget about the need for manual activation for a long time.

1. Installing Docker

If you already have Docker installed, you can skip to step 2.

Assume you already have a Linux server installed. In our example, we use Ubuntu 22.04 (LTS), but you can install Docker on any other OS.

Official installation instructions: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/

Installing Docker on Ubuntu

Install the official Docker GPG key:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg

sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

Add the repository and update:

echo \
 "deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
 "$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \
 sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update

Install Docker:

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

Install docker-compose version v2.27.1 (check for the current version) from the official website: https://github.com/docker/compose/releases

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.27.1/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Set permissions:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Check the installation success with the command (shows the installed version):

docker-compose --version

Running without sudo

To run containers without the sudo command, add your user to the docker group:

Create the group if it doesn't exist:

sudo groupadd docker

Add yourself:

sudo gpasswd -a ${USER} docker

Restart the Docker service:

sudo service docker restart

Update the group to avoid rebooting the server:

newgrp docker

This completes the Docker installation.

2. Running the container

While in your home directory (cd ~), clone the project:

git clone https://github.com/Wind4/vlmcsd-docker.git vlmcsd

Enter the directory:

cd vlmcsd

Start the container using docker-compose:

docker-compose up -d

Check if the container is running with the command:

docker-compose ps

3. Configuring ports

By default, the vlmcsd program operates on the standard KMS port — TCP/1688. Docker forwards the necessary port, but if you have a firewall on the network, you need to allow access from the networks with devices (servers and workstations) to the Docker server.

4. Adding a DNS record

To automatically find the KMS server in the domain, add a _VLMCS record to the DNS.

The easiest way to do this is using the PowerShell command (you need to run this command on your AD DNS server):

Add-DnsServerResourceRecord -Srv -Name "_VLMCS._tcp" -ZoneName "corp.contoso.com" -DomainName "10.10.3.11" -Priority 0 -Weight 0 -Port 1688

Where corp.contoso.com is your AD zone domain,

and 10.10.3.11 is the IP address of the Docker server with the KMS container.

5. Activating Windows

Now all devices in the domain with Windows and Office will automatically activate on the KMS server if they have GVLK keys (VL version of Windows, or with a KMS key installed).

When installing Windows, use the KMS keys from the official site: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/kms-client-activation-keys

If you need to activate Windows manually, use the following PowerShell commands:

Set the key (if not already set), for example, the KMS key for Windows Server 2022 Standard:

slmgr.vbs -ipk VDYBN-27WPP-V4HQT-9VMD4-VMK7H

Activate:

slmgr.vbs -skms 10.10.3.11

slmgr.vbs -ato

After running the command, you should see Product activated successfully

Check Windows activation with the command:

slmgr.vbs -dlv

Errors may occur if you have incorrect versions of Windows installed. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments.

If the activation is successful, you will see the following message:

Message about the successful activation of Windows Server 2022 Standard.

6. Activating Office

Similarly, Microsoft Office 2022/2019/2016/2013 is activated. To activate, use the following commands:

Navigate to the Office folder:

cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16

Activation:

cscript ospp.vbs /sethst: 10.10.3.11

cscript ospp.vbs /act

Check the activation status:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatusall

That's it. The longest part is installing Docker. If you already have Docker and port 1688 is available, setting it up will take 5–10 minutes.