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Licensed Joomla Updates the Right Way

8 Wiring a purchase to a working license key

If you're selling through a storefront component, check carefully what any "ARS integration" app or plugin actually does before assuming it enforces anything. We installed a paid J2Commerce app specifically built to bridge J2Commerce orders and ARS Download IDs, and its product-edit screen exposed a field literally labeled "ARS Package ID" with the description "The Akeeba Release System package ID that this product unlocks." It sounded exactly right.

Reading the plugin's actual source told a different story: that field was saved to the product's params and never read anywhere else in the codebase. What the plugin genuinely did was much simpler — on order completion, if the customer didn't already have a primary Download ID, it generated one random key and tied it to their account. It didn't check which product was purchased, and it didn't touch Joomla user groups. Any customer buying anything got a working key; product-specific entitlement wasn't implemented yet.

IF YOU'RE BUILDING THIS YOURSELFA Download ID only authenticates who someone is to ARS; it doesn't by itself say what they're allowed to have. That's still governed by the Item's Access Level and the customer's Joomla user group. A complete implementation needs to, at minimum, add the purchasing customer to the correct restricted-access user group at the moment their order for the right product completes — not just generate a key for them.
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