docs: Update Boundary Enterprise licensing info (#1290)

This PR recreates `boundary` PR
[#5999](hashicorp/boundary#5999) in the
`web-unified-docs` repo. It includes the following updates to the
previous PR:

- Updates the description of what happens during a graceful shutdown
with an existing description from the controller docs
- Explains how the time of license expiration is determined
- Updates the warning message to be more realistic (🤞 )
- Adds the `license` parameter to the controller configuration docs

View the updates in the preview deployment:

- [Boundary Enterprise
licensing](https://unified-docs-frontend-preview-4xj07ghr7-hashicorp.vercel.app/boundary/docs/enterprise/licensing)
- [controller stanza
configuration](https://unified-docs-frontend-preview-4xj07ghr7-hashicorp.vercel.app/boundary/docs/configuration/controller)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

**From #5999:**

Per [SPE-1197](https://hashicorp.atlassian.net/browse/SPE-1197), a
customer had some questions about what happens when the Boundary
Enterprise license expires. These included:

- What happens when the license expires? Is there a grace period?
- Are there any notifications prior to expiration?
- How do you update a license key and is there downtime?
- What is the recommended upgrade path?

These scenarios were documented in the Vault docs, and the customer
expected to find the information in the Boundary docs too.

This PR updates the Boundary Enterprise licensing documentation with
more information about what happens in the scenarios listed above.


[SPE-1197]:
https://hashicorp.atlassian.net/browse/SPE-1197?atlOrigin=eyJpIjoiNWRkNTljNzYxNjVmNDY3MDlhMDU5Y2ZhYzA5YTRkZjUiLCJwIjoiZ2l0aHViLWNvbS1KU1cifQ

Author: Dan-Heath

content/boundary/v0.20.x/content/docs/configuration/controller.mdx

@@ -84,6 +84,13 @@ description will be read.
   address will be read; or a [go-sockaddr template](https://godoc.org/github.com/hashicorp/go-sockaddr/template).
   Note that the address should not include the protocol prefixes like `http://` or `https://`.
 
+- `license` - The license key value to enable Boundary Enterprise.
+The HashiCorp account team sends you a license to enable enterprise features.
+You can enter the raw license key or the directory path to the file that contains the license key.
+Alternatively, you can configure the license as an environment variable.
+
+  For more information, refer to [Boundary Enterprise licensing](/boundary/docs/enterprise/licensing).
+
 - `auth_token_time_to_live` - Maximum time to live (TTL) for all auth tokens globally (pertains
   to all tokens from all auth methods). Valid time units are anything specified by Golang's
   [ParseDuration()](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#ParseDuration) method. Default is 7 days.
@@ -229,6 +236,9 @@ controller {
   name = "demo-controller-1"
   description = "A controller for a demo!"
 
+  # Path to a valid license to enable Boundary Enterprise.
+  license = "file:///folder_path/license.hclic"
+
   # After receiving a shutdown signal, Boundary will wait 10s before initiating the shutdown process.
   graceful_shutdown_wait_duration = "10s"
 

content/boundary/v0.20.x/content/docs/enterprise/licensing.mdx

@@ -5,12 +5,16 @@ description: >-
   Learn how to enable Boundary Enterprise with a valid license. Request access from an account team to enable enterprise features.
 ---
 
-# License Boundary Enterprise
+# Boundary Enterprise licensing
+
+<EnterpriseAlert product="boundary">This feature requires <a href="https://www.hashicorp.com/products/boundary">Boundary Enterprise</a></EnterpriseAlert>
 
 The Boundary Enterprise binaries require a license key to enforce entitlements and time restrictions according to your contractual agreement.
-Once purchased, your HashiCorp account team send you a valid Boundary license for environment activation.
+Once purchased, your HashiCorp account team sends you a valid Boundary license to activate the environment.
 If you don't yet have an acccount team, but are interested in Boundary Enterprise, you can [contact sales](https://www.hashicorp.com/contact-sales).
 
+## Enable Boundary Enterprise
+
 Once you have received your valid Boundary license, there are two options for enabling Boundary Enterprise:
 
 1. You may set the enterprise license for Boundary using an environment variable.
@@ -53,4 +57,84 @@ Refer to the sample configurations below:
    }
    ```
 
-   Refer to the [controller](/boundary/docs/configuration/controller) configuration  documentation for more information.
+Refer to the [controller](/boundary/docs/configuration/controller) configuration documentation for more information.
+
+## License expiration
+
+When the account team generates a new Boundary Enterprise license, it contains an expiration date based on your contractual agreement.
+Prior to the license expiration, Boundary logs five system event warnings to the event stream at the following intervals:
+
+| Warning | Interval                            |
+|---------|-------------------------------------|
+| First   | 30 days before license expiration   |
+| Second  | 7 days before license expiration    |
+| Third   | 24 hours before license expiration  |
+| Fourth  | 1 hour before license expiration    |
+| Fifth   | 1 minute before license expiration  |
+
+If you use an external monitoring system, you can create alerts for `"msg": "license warning"` and `"op": "licensing.StartWatching"` to watch for license expiration warnings.
+
+Refer to the following example of how the warnings appear in the log:
+
+<CodeBlockConfig hideClipboard>
+
+```plaintext
+{
+  "id": "ymFHcb1H1Z",
+  "source": "https://hashicorp.com/boundary/nixos/controller+worker",
+  "specversion": "1.0",
+  "type": "system",
+  "data": {
+    "version": "v0.1",
+    "op": "licensing.StartWatching",
+    "data": {
+      "expiration_time": "2025-09-08T11:14:33-07:00",
+      "msg": "licensing warning",
+      "time_left_seconds": 60
+    }
+  },
+  "datacontentype": "text/plain",
+  "time": "2025-09-08T11:14:03.457471753-07:00"
+}
+```
+
+</CodeBlockConfig>
+
+When the license expires, you receive the following message as an error:
+
+<CodeBlockConfig hideClipboard>
+
+```plaintext
+{
+  "id": "SJkaNV09xP",
+  "source": "https://hashicorp.com/boundary/nixos/controller+worker",
+  "specversion": "1.0",
+  "type": "error",
+  "data": {
+    "error": "error from licensing watcher: invalid license or license is expired",
+    "error_fields": {},
+    "id": "e_33IKa8BqB3",
+    "version": "v0.1",
+    "op": "licensing.StartWatching"
+  },
+  "datacontentype": "text/plain",
+  "time": "2025-08-01T16:54:14.34408533-07:00"
+}
+==> Boundary dev environment self-terminating
+==> Health is enabled, waiting 0s before shutdown
+==> Boundary dev environment graceful shutdown triggered, interrupt again to enter shutdown
+```
+
+</CodeBlockConfig>
+
+When the license expires, Boundary performs a graceful shutdown.
+A graceful shutdown closes listeners and servers before shutting down the controller to preemptively stop any new traffic to the Boundary instance.
+
+To update your license key, refer to the steps in [Enable Boundary Enterprise](#enable-boundary-enterprise).
+As a best practice, we recommend restarting the controller after you update the license key.
+
+## More information
+
+Refer to the [Upgrade and database migration](/boundary/tutorials/self-managed-deployment/upgrade-version) tutorial for step-by-step instructions to upgrade Boundary to the latest version, including database backup and data migration.
+
+Refer to [Monitor Boundary](/boundary/docs/monitor) for more information about configuring Boundary to monitor events.

content/boundary/v0.20.x/data/docs-nav-data.json

@@ -798,7 +798,7 @@
         "title": "Overview",
         "path": "hcp",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "HCP",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -810,7 +810,7 @@
             "title": "Deploy and log in",
             "path": "hcp/get-started/deploy-and-login",
             "badge": {
-              "text": "HCP/ENT",
+              "text": "HCP",
               "type": "outlined",
               "color": "neutral"
             }
@@ -819,7 +819,7 @@
             "title": "Connect to a target",
             "path": "hcp/get-started/connect-to-target",
             "badge": {
-              "text": "HCP/ENT",
+              "text": "HCP",
               "type": "outlined",
               "color": "neutral"
             }
@@ -830,7 +830,7 @@
         "title": "Documentation",
         "href": "https://cloud.hashicorp.com/docs/boundary",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "HCP",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -844,7 +844,7 @@
         "title": "Overview",
         "path": "enterprise",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -853,7 +853,7 @@
         "title": "Licensing",
         "path": "enterprise/licensing",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -862,7 +862,7 @@
         "title": "Automated license reporting",
         "path": "enterprise/automated-license-reporting",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -871,7 +871,7 @@
         "title": "Supported versions policy",
         "path": "enterprise/supported-versions",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -880,7 +880,7 @@
         "title": "Deployment guide",
         "href": "https://developer.hashicorp.com/boundary/tutorials/enterprise/ent-deployment-guide",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }
@@ -889,7 +889,7 @@
         "title": "Reference architecture",
         "href": "https://developer.hashicorp.com/boundary/tutorials/enterprise/ent-reference-architecture",
         "badge": {
-          "text": "HCP/ENT",
+          "text": "ENT",
           "type": "outlined",
           "color": "neutral"
         }