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Why Burp asks to activate license when starting by cmd.exe

ruby | Last updated: Sep 08, 2016 02:04AM UTC

Hi all, I met a problem with Burp. I developed a java extension to launch burp in cmd.exe. I wrote a .bat file and call it by Java Runtime. It asks me to activate the license again. If I open the .bat file directly, it won't ask for activation. But if I open the .bat file by Java Runtime object like this: Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime(); runtime.exec("cmd /k start aaa.bat"); It will ask for activation. So I don't know what happened because Burp's behavior is not predictable. Please contact and help me if you have any idea. My email address is rubylou@foxmail.com

PortSwigger Agent | Last updated: Sep 08, 2016 07:51AM UTC

Burp's license activation is tied to the current user context. It's not completely clear what is going on, but if you start Burp in a different user context than usual, then you might not pick up the license activation. I would suggest looking at the user context in which your wrapper process is running, and ensuring that no impersonation or ID switching is happening.

Burp User | Last updated: Sep 13, 2016 03:06AM UTC

Hi @Dafydd Stuttard, Thank you for your reply. But what do you mean by current user context? I checked cmd.exe started as Administrator, as well as Burp. So could you please explain how to check the current user context? Thanks a lot!

PortSwigger Agent | Last updated: Sep 13, 2016 07:38AM UTC

That's exactly what I mean - starting Burp as Administrator versus a different user. The most common cause of losing license activation is switching user context. If you are on Windows, you probably don't need administrative privileges to do anything with Burp, so it would be simpler to always use your regular user context, rather than switching to Administrator.

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