# How to get a free basic license.key for building?

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-get-a-free-basic-license-key-for-building/157693
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [November 21, 2018, 11:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-get-a-free-basic-license-key-for-building/157693 "2018-11-21T11:26:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![DavidTurner](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/davidturner/32/22453_2.png) [@DavidTurner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DavidTurner)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2018, 2:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-get-a-free-basic-license-key-for-building/157693/2 "2018-11-21T14:04:53Z")

</div>

The licence key it needs here is not the same thing as the licence that the subscriptions talk about, it's a signing key:

> [@Building OSS release version of Elastic Search 6.3.1](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/building-oss-release-version-of-elastic-search-6-3-1/142041/9):
>
> For the record (and future readers), you need a signing key to build a non-snapshot version.

I think this is only required to build X-pack, but I am not sure how to go about building _just_ the non-X-pack components any more.

Why do you want to produce your own release build? The only real difference is the `-SNAPSHOT` in the version number, and I think it's important to use this to see the difference between official versions (built in a very carefully controlled environment) and versions built elsewhere.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-get-a-free-basic-license-key-for-building/157693)._