Windows Server 2003 CAL's required for every machine?

[matja]

Is it possible to unwittingly breach the licensing agreement for Windows 2003 Server regarding Client Access Licenses (CAL's)?

I ask this because we have a network with two Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition machines as domain controllers (each comes with 5 CAL's, so that's 10 CAL's), and more than 10 Windows XP machines joined to the domain.

The only 'service' we use is file/printer sharing, shared from one server.

The servers have been installed with the 'Per Server Mode' licensing (as described here : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/caloverview.mspx) which as far as I can make out, should restrict the number of simultaneous connections to 5 per server.

However, right now I can see that there are 12 machines accessing files on one server, but I've never come across any access denied error messages or whatever regarding CAL's.

Is this within the acceptable use for the licensing conditions, considering the fact that everything seems to work fine without having to add extra CAL's?

I must admit that the licensing webpage confuses me rather than helping

 

[matja]

thanks for clarifying that - so I can be 'legal' right now by restricting the connections per server to 5? how does one do that, and why doesn't it do it by default?

I'm still having some trouble understanding exactly how many CAL's I'd need :

Would I need to buy device CAL's for BOTH Windows Server's, for every Windows XP client machine? Lets say 15 XP machines = 30 CAL's?

If that is the case, then user CAL's would make more sense, but what does Microsoft count as a 'user'. I have domain user accounts for backup, testing, etc - do I count these as well as physical people?

Would I still need CAL's if I used Windows Server 2003 just for Domain Controller dutues, and instead used Linux for file/printer sharing? - exactly what does Microsoft mean by 'services' running on a 'server'?

So many questions

 

[matja]

Thanks for the reply - CAL's on order