TOC INDEX

Chapter 1
Welcome to FLEXlm

FLEXlm® is the de facto standard network license manager used by over 2000 leading software vendors to control the use of their software products. If you are a system administrator or user, chances are one or more of the products currently on your network is licensed by FLEXlm.

This manual explains FLEXlm from an end user standpoint and describes how to use the tools which are part of the standard FLEXlm distribution kit. GLOBEtrotter Software also provides the SAMsuite™ asset management tool for more advanced license server control and reporting. Please contact GLOBEtrotter Software by email at info@globes.com or on the Internet at http://www.globetrotter.com for more information about SAMsuite.

Keep in mind that certain topics (such as password encryption) are vendor-specific and proprietary so we cannot document them in any detail. Also, because FLEXlm does not enforce a particular licensing strategy, each vendor's implementation can have subtle differences. If you do not find out what you need to know here, you should contact your vendor's technical support group.

1.1 Versions of FLEXlm

This manual covers features of interest to license administrators and end users in FLEXlm versions 1.0 through 7.1.

1.2 How to Use This Manual

This manual is written for two different audiences: the license administrator and the end user.

1.2.1 License Administrator

If you are a license administrator, read these chapters:

This chapter: Explains:
Welcome to FLEXlm
FLEXlm basics: license manager and vendor
daemons; the license file; configuring
FLEXlm; the license request process.
The License File
The license file format; setting the path at
start-up; different types of licensing policies.
Multiple License Files
Using license files from independent
software vendors.
Selecting Server Nodes
Selecting which machines will run the
license servers; resources required by the
servers; multiple servers; quorums;
redundant servers.
The Options File
Creating and editing the options file.
License Administration
Tools
Managing FLEXlm using GLOBEtrotter-
supplied utilities.

In addition, you can refer to Appendix B, "Troubleshooting Guide," which contains a list of common problems and their solutions and Appendix D, "Frequently Asked Questions."

1.2.2 End User

If you are an end user, read these chapters:

This chapter: Explains:
Welcome to FLEXlm
FLEXlm basics: license and vendor daemons;
the license file; configuring FLEXlm; the
license request process.
The License File
The license file format; setting the path at start-
up; different types of licensing policies.

In addition, you can refer to Appendix B, "Troubleshooting Guide," which contains a list of common problems and their solutions.

1.3 Related Documents from GLOBEtrotter Software

The SAMsuite Users Guide describes the SAMsuite license administration tool for managing FLEXlm-enabled applications, and the SAMwrap Users Guide describes SAMwrap for administrators who wish to provide FLEXlm license management for applications shipped without embedded license management.

The FLEXlm Programmers Guide and FLEXlm Reference Manual are for programmers responsible for incorporating FLEXlm into their products.

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Chapter 2
Introduction and Overview

This chapter explains the basics of floating (network) licensing and gives a quick overview of the components of FLEXlm. It explains where license administrators have control and where end users have control. Section 2.5, "Getting Started Checklist," tells both license administrators and end users how to start managing FLEXlm.

2.1 Introduction to FLEXlm

FLEXlm is the most popular license manager used in the software industry. FLEXlm is best known for its ability to allow software licenses to be available (or float) anywhere on a network, instead of being tied to specific machines. Floating licensing benefits both users and license administrators. Users can make more efficient use of fewer licenses by sharing them on the network. License administrators can control who uses the licensed application and the node(s) where the licenses will be available. See Section 3.4, "Types of License Files," for details about the different licensing models supported by FLEXlm.

2.2 FLEXlm Components

The four main components of FLEXlm are:

2.2.1 The License Manager Daemon (lmgrd)

The license manager daemon (lmgrd) handles the initial contact with the client application programs, passing the connection on to the appropriate vendor daemon. It also starts and restarts the vendor daemons. FLEXlm permits multiple redundant license manager daemons on three server nodes, allowing you to make your license available if any two of the three server nodes is running. Redundancy can be achieved with three-server redundant servers or by using a license file list with any number of servers.

Note: lmgrd is not present on VMS or Netware systems.

2.2.2 The Vendor Daemon

In FLEXlm, licenses are granted by running processes (unless they're node- locked, uncounted licenses, in which case they need only read the license file to run). There is one process for each vendor who has a FLEXlm-licensed product on the network. This process is called the vendor daemon. The vendor daemon keeps track of how many licenses are checked out, and who has them. If the vendor daemon terminates for any reason, all users lose their licenses (though this does not mean the applications suddenly stop running). Users normally regain their license automatically when lmgrd restarts the vendor daemon, though they may exit if the vendor daemon remains unavailable.

Client programs communicate with the vendor daemon, usually through TCP/IP network communications. The client application and the daemon processes (the license server) can run on separate nodes on your network, across any size wide-area network. Also, the format of the traffic between the client and the vendor daemon is machine independent, allowing for heterogeneous networks. This means the license server and the computer running an application can be either different hardware platforms or even different operating systems (Windows and UNIX, for example).

2.2.3 The License File

Licensing data is stored in a text file called the license file. The license file is created by the software vendor, and edited and installed by the license administrator. It contains information about the server nodes and vendor daemons, and at least one line of data (called FEATURE or INCREMENT lines) for each licensed product. Each FEATURE line contains a license key or signature based on the data in that line, the hostids specified in the SERVER line(s), and other vendor-specific data.

In some environments, the licensing information for several vendors may be combined into a single license file.

Most applications have an expected location for the license file, documented by that application. End users can usually override this location by setting the environment variable LM_LICENSE_FILE to point elsewhere, or by following instructions supplied with the licensed application. If your site has software from multiple vendors with incompatible license files (due to different sets of servers), you can keep the data in separate files and set the LM_LICENSE_FILE variable to reference multiple files.

It's strongly recommended that you keep a link (on UNIX) or copy of the license file in the vendor's expected license location, so that users will not need to set LM_LICENSE_FILE to run their applications. If the licenses are counted (floating) this license should have a USE_SERVER line directly after the SERVER line. For details, see Chapter 3, "The License File." See also Appendix C, "FLEXlm Environment Variables."

2.2.4 The Application Program

The application program using FLEXlm is linked with the program module (called the FLEXlm client library) that provides the communication with the license server. On Windows, this module is called lmgrxxx.dll, where xxx indicates the FLEXlm version. During execution, the application program communicates with the vendor daemon to request a license.

2.3 The License Request Process

When you run a counted FLEXlm-licensed application, the following occurs:

  1. The license module in the client application finds the license file, which includes the host name of the license server node and port number of the license manager daemon, lmgrd.
  2. The client establishes a connection with the license manager daemon (lmgrd) and tells it what vendor daemon it needs to talk to.
  3. lmgrd determines which machine and port correspond to the master vendor daemon and sends that information back to the client.
  4. The client establishes a connection with the specified vendor daemon and sends its request for a license.
  5. The vendor daemon checks in its memory to see if any licenses are available and sends a grant or denial back to the client.
  6. The license module in the application grants or denies use of the feature, as appropriate.

Uncounted features (where the license count is 0) do not require a server, and the FLEXlm client library routines in the application grant or deny usage based solely upon the license contents.

2.4 Configuring FLEXlm

Most of the parameters of FLEXlm are configurable by the license administrator. The license administrator can set the:

In addition, the license administrator can reserve licenses for specific users, nodes, or groups, and control other license-related options. Changing parameters is discussed in Chapter 6, "The Options File."

Note: Refer to your vendor's documentation before attempting to change file names, locations, or contents.

2.5 Getting Started Checklist

The following sections provide a quick overview of how to set up and use licensing for FLEXlm-licensed products. By scanning the list, you should be able to quickly find the areas of interest. Cross-references point to more details in other parts of this manual.

2.5.1 Installing Licensed Software

As a license administrator you are responsible for setting up licensing on your system or network. This section tells you how to do that. If you are an end user of the application and you will not be involved in installing it, then go to Section 2.5.2, "Notes for End Users."

Remember that the installation guide for your application software is the final word on installing and configuring FLEXlm. Generally, however, installing FLEXlm licensing requires the following steps:

  1. Select your license server nodes and get their hostids. See Appendix A, "Hostids for FLEXlm-Supported Machines."
  2. Give the hostids to your software vendor and get a license file (or the data to enter in the license file) in return.
  3. Consider combining the new license file with any existing license files. See Chapter 4, "Multiple License Files."
  4. Determine if an options file is desired, and if so, set it up.
  5. Determine where to install the FLEXlm utility programs such as lmgrd and lmutil (lmstat/lmdown/etc.) and install them, unless your vendor's installation script does so for you.
  6. Start lmgrd (the license manager daemon) manually; you may also want to set it up to start automatically at boot time. See Section 3.1.1, "Starting the License Server at System Startup."

These steps are discussed briefly below, with cross-references to the appropriate locations for more detail.

License Server Node and Hostids

Before running any FLEXlm-licensed program using floating licenses, you will need to set up your license server node (or nodes). You must select which node or nodes to run your license servers on and provide the hostids of those machines to your software vendor. For pointers on selecting your server machine, see Chapter 5, "Selecting Server Nodes."

You can get the hostid of the server machine by running FLEXlm's lmhostid utility on that machine. If you don't have lmhostid, you can get the hostid of your machine by using the appropriate command as described in Appendix A, "Hostids for FLEXlm-Supported Machines."

Using the hostid of your server machines, your vendor will send you a license file that enables their application software.

License Files and lmgrd

Once you have received a license file from your vendor, you must install it on your system and start up the license manager daemon, lmgrd.

Administration Tools

GLOBEtrotter Software supplies administration tools to your software vendor. The vendor usually includes them with their product. The recommended location for the tools is /usr/local/bin (UNIX), C:\flexlm (Windows), or SYS$COMMON:[SYSMGR] (VMS), but you can install them in a different location (or not at all). See Chapter 7, "License Administration Tools," for more information.

Options Files

The options file controls various options such as reservations and timeouts of licenses. Most users run without an options file, but you may decide you want to use some options. For example, many administrators use an option to limit the quantity and content of logged messages. To set up an options file, see Chapter 6, "The Options File."

2.5.2 Notes for End Users

As a user of a FLEXlm-licensed application, you may need to know a few things to use the system effectively. The main things you need to know are:

How to Specify a License File

The license file determines what features are available to a program. It also contains information telling the application how to connect to the license server.

For information about the standard way of specifying a license file for an application, see Chapter 3, "The License File."

Getting Information About Licenses

To find out who is using a license run lmstat, described in Chapter 7, "License Administration Tools."

TOC INDEX

Chapter 3
The License File

The license file contains all site-specific information required by FLEXlm. This information includes:

In general, the license file, or a copy of it, must be accessible to every machine that runs a FLEXlm-licensed application, and each machine designated as a license server. If the license file contains counted (also called "floating") licenses, before you can use the application you have to start the license manager daemon (lmgrd) using the following syntax:

lmgrd -c license_file_path -l debug_log_path

where license_file_path is the full path to the license file and debug_log_path is the full path to the debug log file.

Note: On VMS and Netware systems, there is no lmgrd and the vendor daemon is run directly.

3.1 Specifying Location of the License File

Most software vendors recommend a specific location for your license file. If you are running the application on multiple nodes, you have these options for making your license available on all the machines:

Since the vendor daemon keeps track of license usage, and since the license file contains encrypted data to protect it against modification, you may move and copy the license file as much as necessary.

For counted licenses, no matter which option you choose, you must first install lmgrd and the vendor daemon.

With a FLEXlm v6+ vendor daemon and lmgrd, the license path can be a list of files, separated by colons on UNIX or semi-colons on Windows. If there is a directory in this list, all files named *.lic in that directory are used.

Note: You can only start lmgrd on the server node specified in the license file.

Note: If you are running redundant servers, you should have separate copies of the license file (as well as the binaries for lmgrd and the vendor daemons) on each server node. If you do not do this, you lose all the advantages of having redundant servers, since the file server holding these files becomes a single point of failure.

3.1.1 Starting the License Server at System Startup

If any licenses in the license file are counted (license count > 0), then the license server must be started before the product can be used.

UNIX

To start the license manager daemon (lmgrd), execute a command similar to the following.

If you are running in the C shell:

% lmgrd_path -c license_file_path -l debug_log_path &

If you are using either the Korn or Bourne shell:

$ nohup lmgrd_path -c license_file_path -l debug_log_path 2>&1 &

On UNIX, edit the appropriate boot script, which may be /etc/rc.boot, /etc/rc.local, /etc/rc2.d/Sxxx, /sbin/rc2.d/Sxxxx, etc. Remember that these scripts are run in /bin/sh, so do not use the csh ">&" redirection syntax.

Each UNIX operating system can have some quirks in doing this, but the following script has been successfully tested for HP700 systems. See the notes following for a full explanation.

/bin/su daniel -c 'echo starting lmgrd > \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

/bin/nohup /bin/su daniel -c 'umask 022; \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/lmgrd -c \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/license.dat >> \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

/bin/su daniel -c 'echo sleep 5 >> \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

/bin/sleep 5

/bin/su daniel -c 'echo lmdiag >>\
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

/bin/su daniel -c '/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/lmdiag -n -c\
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/license.dat >> \
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

/bin/su daniel -c 'echo exiting >>\
/home/flexlm/v5.12/hp700_u9/boot.log'

Please note the following about how this script was written:

Windows

From lmtools, start lmgrd. You can optionally indicate that this should be started at system startup.

3.1.2 Setting the Path with an Environment Variable

Most applications specify a location where they expect to find the license file. Many will automatically install the license. You should rarely, if ever, be required to specify where the license file is located with an environment variable. However, you can change the license location with LM_LICENSE_FILE, or if a location is not set by the application, you can set one.

Use the environment variable LM_LICENSE_FILE to set the location of the license file. For example in the C shell:

% setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE license_file_path

In the Korn and Bourne shells:

# LM_LICENSE_FILE=license_file_path
# export LM_LICENSE_FILE

On Windows 95, add the following line to C:\autoexec.bat:

SET LM_LICENSE_FILE=license_file_path

On Windows NT, use the System Control Panel to change the global environment, adding LM_LICENSE_FILE to license_file_path, where license_file_path is the full path to the license file. This can also be a port@host setting, where port and host are the port number and host name from the SERVER line in the license file. v6+ applications can use simply @host, if the server uses a default port number.

In FLEXlm v6+, applications will accept an environment variable (or Windows Registry) named VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE, where VENDOR is the vendor daemon name, e.g., GSI_LICENSE_FILE.

With lmgrd and lmutil (lmstat, lmdown, etc.), the -c option overrides the setting of the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable. See Section 4.1.3, "Using Separate License Files on the Same Server Node," for more information about LM_LICENSE_FILE.

Note: Some applications do not recognize the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable.

See also Appendix C, "FLEXlm Environment Variables."

3.2 License File Format

License files usually begin with a SERVER line (or three lines for redundant servers) followed by one or more DAEMON lines, followed by one or more FEATURE or INCREMENT lines. In some cases the license file requires no SERVER line and no DAEMON line. See Section 5.4, "Counted vs. Uncounted Licenses," for more information. Since FLEXlm v6.0, the DAEMON line can be called VENDOR. Wherever DAEMON appears, VENDOR can be used, if the lmgrd and vendor daemon are both >= FLEXlm v6.0.

You can modify these data items in the license file:

Long lines normally use the "\" line-continuation character to break up long lines (though this is not required with v7+ applications). FLEXlm v2 did not support the line-continuation character, although this rarely matters since optional attributes weren't support then either.

Note: Everything else is used to compute the license key or signature, and should be entered exactly as supplied by your software vendor. All data in the license file is case sensitive, unless otherwise indicated.

3.2.1 SERVER Lines

The SERVER line specifies the node name and hostid of the license server and the port number of the license manager daemon (lmgrd). Normally a license file has one SERVER line. Three SERVER lines mean that you are using redundant servers. The absence of a SERVER line means that every FEATURE or INCREMENT line in the license file is uncounted. For more information about uncounted features, see Section 3.2.4, "FEATURE or INCREMENT Lines." License administrators do not have the option of deleting SERVER lines from a license file because the hostids from the SERVER lines are computed into the license key or signature on every FEATURE and INCREMENT line. For more information about redundant servers, see Chapter 5, "Selecting Server Nodes."

The format of the SERVER line is:

SERVER host hostid [port]

where:

host
The system host name or IP address. String returned by
the UNIX hostname or uname -n command. On NT,
ipconfig /all; on Windows 95, winipcfg /all
return the host name. If the application uses FLEXlm v5 or
higher, this can be an IP address (in ###.###.###.###
format).
hostid
Usually the string returned by the lmhostid command.
This can only be changed by your software supplier.
port
TCP port number to use. A valid number is any unused
port number between 0 and 64000. On UNIX, choose a
port >1024, since those <1024 are privileged port
numbers. The port number is optional if lmgrd, the
vendor daemon, and the application are v6+ (if no port
number is specified, one of the default ports in the range
of 27000 and 27009 will be used).

Example:

SERVER enterprise 0122345 21987

3.2.2 DAEMON (or VENDOR) Lines

The DAEMON line specifies the daemon name and path. lmgrd uses this line to start the vendor daemon, and the vendor daemon reads it to find its options file. The format of the DAEMON line is shown below.

Note: Since FLEXlm v6.0, the DAEMON line can be called VENDOR. VENDOR can be used if the lmgrd and vendor daemon are both at least FLEXlm v6.0.
{DAEMON|VENDOR} vendor [vendor_daemon_path]\
[[options=]options_file_path] [[port=]port]

where:

vendor
Name of the vendor daemon used to serve some
feature(s) in the file. This name cannot be changed
by the administrator.
vendor_daemon_
path
Path to the executable for this daemon. Generally
the license administrator is free to install the
daemon in any directory. (It is recommended,
however, that it be installed in a local directory on
the license server node.)
If the vendor daemon is v6+, this path is optional.
If left out, lmgrd will look for the vendor daemon
binary in the current directory, the PATH list, or in
the directory where lmgrd is located. If the
vendor daemon path is blank, then the options=
and port= strings are required if options or port
number are specified.
options_file_

path
Full path to the end-user options file for this
daemon. (See Chapter 6, "The Options File.")
FLEXlm does not require an options file. The
keyword options= requires a v5+ vendor
daemon.
If the vendor daemon is v6+, the options file need
not be specified on this line. If it is called
vendor.opt (where vendor is the vendor
daemon name) and located in the same directory
as the license file, the vendor daemon will
automatically find and use it.
port
Vendor daemon port number. This requires a v5+
lmgrd.
Note: This is for firewall support only and is
otherwise not recommended. If a port number is
specified on the DAEMON line, there is a delay
restarting the vendor daemon until all the clients
have closed their connections to the vendor
daemon.

v6.0:

VENDOR sampled

pre-v6.0:

DAEMON sampled /etc/sampled \
/a/b/sampled/licenses/sampled.opt

3.2.3 USE_SERVER Line (v5+ only)

USE_SERVER takes no arguments and has no impact on the server. When the application sees USE_SERVER, it ignores everything in the license file except preceding SERVER lines, and the checkout validation occurs at the vendor daemon. USE_SERVER is recommended since it improves performance when a license server is used. For uncounted features, USE_SERVER can be used to force logging of usage by the daemons.

3.2.4 FEATURE or INCREMENT Lines

A FEATURE line describes the license to use a product. An INCREMENT line can be used in place of a FEATURE line, as well as to incrementally add licenses to a prior FEATURE or INCREMENT line in the license file.

Only the first FEATURE line for a given feature will be processed by the vendor daemon. If you want to have additional copies of the same feature (for example, to have multiple node-locked, counted features), then you must use multiple INCREMENT lines. INCREMENT lines form license groups based on the feature name, version, and node-lock hostid. If the feature name, version, and node-lock hostid (and optionally, the vendor string, if the vendor specified this) match a prior INCREMENT or FEATURE line, the new number of licenses is added to the old number. If any of the three do not match, a new group of licenses is created in the vendor daemon, and this group (called a license pool) is counted independently from others with the same feature name. INCREMENT is not available for pre-v2.61 FLEXlm clients or servers. A FEATURE line does not give an additional number of licenses, whereas an INCREMENT line always gives an additional number of licenses.

Note: There is a rarely used option in FLEXlm which causes FEATURE lines to function as INCREMENT lines. This option is called ls_use_all_feature_lines. You will have to ask your vendor if they use this option. If they do, then all FEATURE lines behave exactly as INCREMENT lines.

Note: A FEATURE line placed after another FEATURE or INCREMENT line will be ignored (unless ls_use_all_feature_lines is set).

The format for the FEATURE line changed in FLEXlm v3.0 and again in FLEXlm v6.0. The older formats are understood by new clients and servers, but the new formats are more flexible.

v2 format:

{FEATURE|INCREMENT} feature vendor \
feat_version exp_date num_lic key \
"vendor_str" [feat_hostid]

v3-v7.0 format:

{FEATURE|INCREMENT} feature vendor feat_version \
exp_date num_lic key [HOSTID=feat_hostid] \
[VENDOR_STRING="vendor_str"] [vendor_info="..."] \
[dist_info="..."] [user_info="..."] [asset_info="..."] \
[ISSUER="..."] [NOTICE="..."] [ck=nnn] [OVERDRAFT=nnn] \
[DUP_GROUP=NONE|SITE|[UHDV]]

v7.1+ format:

{FEATURE|INCREMENT} feature vendor feat_version \
exp_date num_lic [HOSTID=feat_hostid] \
[VENDOR_STRING="vendor_str"] [vendor_info="..."] \
[dist_info="..."] [user_info="..."] [asset_info="..."] \
[ISSUER="..."] [NOTICE="..."] [ck=nnn] [OVERDRAFT=nnn] \
[DUP_GROUP=NONE|SITE|[UHDV]] SIGN=sign

Note: Nothing in a FEATURE/INCREMENT line is editable, except for values in keyword=value pairs where keyword is all lowercase.

where:

feature
Name given to the feature by the vendor.
vendor
Name of the vendor daemon; also found in the
DAEMON line. The specified daemon serves
this feature.
feat_version
Version of this feature that is supported by this
license.
exp_date
Expiration date of license, e.g., 7-may-1996.
Note: If the year is 0 (or 00, 000, 0000) then
the license never expires. Dates before 2000
can be two- or four-digit years. After 2000
they must be four-digit years. The expiration
date is fully year-2000 compliant.
FLEXlm v6 (or later) applications only: the
keyword "permanent" can be used instead of
the date 1-jan-0.
num_lic
Number of concurrent licenses for this feature.
If the number of licenses is set to 0, the
licenses for this feature are uncounted and no
lmgrd is required but a hostid on the
FEATURE line is required. See Section 5.4,
"Counted vs. Uncounted Licenses."
FLEXlm v6 (or later) applications only: the
keyword "uncounted" can be used instead of a
license count of 0.
key
License key to authenticate this FEATURE
line. Two identical-looking FEATURE or
INCREMENT lines may have different license
keys if the start dates are different.
SIGN=sign
SIGN= signature to authenticate this
FEATURE line. (v7.1+)

The following fields are all optional (except for "vendor_str" in the v2 format). For optional fields of the keyword=value syntax, if the keyword is lowercase, it can be modified and the license will remain valid.

"vendor_str"
Vendor-defined string, enclosed in double
quotes. This string can contain any
characters except a quote. Required field in
the v2 format.
feat_hostid
String returned by lmhostid. Used only if
the feature is to be bound to a particular
host, whether its use is counted or not.
Numeric hostids are case insensitive. See
Appendix A, "Hostids for FLEXlm-
Supported Machines," for more information.
DUP_GROUP=...
Duplicate grouping parameter can be
specified in the license in FLEXlm v4.0 and
later. The syntax is:
DUP_GROUP=NONE|SITE|[UHDV]

U = DUP_USER
H = DUP_HOST
D = DUP_DISPLAY
V = DUP_VENDOR_DEF

Any combination of UHDV is allowed, and
the DUP_MASK is the OR of the
combination. For example,
DUP_GROUP=UHD means the duplicate
grouping is
(DUP_USER|DUP_HOST|DUP_DISPLAY),
so for a user on the same host and display,
additional uses of a feature do not consume
additional licenses.
HOSTID=

feat_hostid
Same as feat_hostid above, but in the
keyword=value pair syntax (FLEXlm v3.0
and later).
HOST_BASED[=n]
Host names must be specified in INCLUDE
statements in the end-user options file, and
the number of hosts is limited to num_lic,
or the number specified in =n.
ISSUED=

dd-mmm-yyyy
Date issued.
ISSUER="..."
Issuer of the license.
NOTICE="..."
A field for intellectual property notices.
OVERDRAFT=n
FLEXlm v4.0 and later. The overdraft policy
allows your vendor to specify a number of
additional licenses which users will be
allowed to use, in addition to the licenses
they have purchased. This allows your users
to not be denied service when in a
"temporary overdraft" state. Usage above
the license limit will be reported by the
SAMreport reporting tool.
PLATFORMS="..."
Usage is limited to the listed platforms.
(v5.11+ only).
SN=serial_num
Serial number, used to identify FEATURE or
INCREMENT lines.
START=

dd-mmm-yyyy
Start date (FLEXlm v6 or later only).
SUPERSEDE=

"f1 f2 ..."
If this appears, all licenses issued before the
date specified in ISSUED= are superseded
by this line and become ineffective.
USER_BASED[=n]
Users must be specified in INCLUDE
statements in the end-user options file, and
the number of users are limited to num_lic,
or the number specified in =n.
VENDOR_STRING=

"..."
Same as "vendor_str" above, but in
keyword=value pair syntax.

The following attributes can be changed or deleted by end users. This is indicated by a lowercase keyword.

asset_info=

"..."
Additional information provided by the license
administrator for asset management.
ck=nnn
A checksum, useful with the lmcksum utility,
which will verify that the license has been entered
correctly by the end user.
dist_info=

"..."
Additional information provided by the software
distributor.
user_info=

"..."
Additional information provided by the license
administrator.
vendor_info=

"..."
Additional information provided by the software
vendor.

Examples:

FEATURE xyz_app xyzd 2.300 31-dec-2005 20 123456789012 "xyz"
INCREMENT f1 xyzd 1.000 1-jan-0 5 901234567890 \
HOSTID=INTERNET=195.186.*.* NOTICE="Licensed to XYZ corp"

3.2.5 PACKAGE Lines

The purpose of the PACKAGE line is to support two different licensing needs:

A PACKAGE line, by itself, does not license anything--it requires a matching FEATURE/INCREMENT line to license the whole package. A PACKAGE line can be shipped by your software vendor with a product, independent of any licenses. Later, when you purchase a license for that package, one or more corresponding FEATURE/INCREMENT lines will enable the PACKAGE line.

Example:

PACKAGE package vendor pkg_version COMPONENTS=pkg_list \
[OPTIONS=SUITE] SIGN=pkg_sign

where:

package
Name of the package. The corresponding
FEATURE/INCREMENT line must have the same
name.
vendor
Name of the vendor daemon that supports this
package.
pkg_version
Version of the package. If specified, the enabling
FEATURE/INCREMENT line must have the same
version.
pkg_sign
License key or SIGN= signature.
pkg_list
List of package components. The format is:
feature[:version[:num_lic]]
Packages must consist of at least one component.
Version and count are optional, and if left out,
their values come from the corresponding
FEATURE/INCREMENT line. num_lic is only
legal if OPTIONS=SUITE is not set--in this case
the resulting number of licenses will be num_lic
on the COMPONENTS line multiplied by the
number of licenses in the
FEATURE/INCREMENT line. Examples:
COMPONENTS="comp1 comp2 comp3 comp4"
COMPONENTS="comp1:1.5 comp2 comp3:2.0:4"
OPTIONS=SUITE
This is what distinguishes a package suite from a
package used to ease distribution.
With OPTIONS=SUITE, the corresponding feature
of the same name as the package is checked out in
addition to the component feature being checked
out.
If OPTIONS=SUITE is not set, then the
corresponding feature of the same name as the
package is removed once the package is enabled;
is not checked out when a component feature is
checked out.

Examples:

PACKAGE suite xyzd 1.0 3B24B2F508CB \
COMPONENTS="comp1 comp2" OPTIONS=SUITE
FEATURE suite xyzd 1.0 1-jan-0 5 4193E6ABCCCB

This is a typical OPTIONS=SUITE example. There are two features, "comp1" and "comp2," which are each version 1.0, each with five non-expiring licenses available. When "comp1" or "comp2" is checked out, "suite" will also be checked out.

PACKAGE suite xyzd 1.0 2CBF44FCB9C1 \
COMPONENTS="c1:1.5:2 c2:3.0:4"
FEATURE suite xyzd 1.0 1-jan-2005 3 321E78A17EC1 SN=123

In this example, the component version overrides the feature version, and the number of licenses available for any component is the product of the three licenses for "suite" and the number of licenses for that component. The result is equivalent to:

FEATURE c1 xyzd 1.5 1-jan-2005 6 0D3AD5F26BEC SN=123
FEATURE c2 xyzd 3.0 1-jan-2005 12 EB16C5AE61F0 SN=123

With FLEXlm v6 (or later) applications only the PACKAGE lines can be stored in a separate file which need never be edited.

3.2.6 UPGRADE Lines

UPGRADE feature vendor from_feat_version to_feat_version \
exp_date num_lic [options ... ] SIGN=sign

All the data is the same as for a FEATURE or INCREMENT line, with the addition of the from_feat_version field. An UPGRADE line removes up to the number of licenses specified from any old version (>= from_feat_version) and creates a new version with that same number of licenses.

For example, the two lines:

INCREMENT f1 xyzd 1.000 1-jan-2005 5 SIGN=9BFAC0316462
UPGRADE f1 xyzd 1.000 2.000 1-jan-2005 2 SIGN=1B9A308CC0F7

would result in three licenses of v1.0 of "f1" and two licenses of v2.0 of "f1."

An UPGRADE line will operate on the closest preceding FEATURE or INCREMENT line with a version number that is >= from_feat_version, and < to_feat_version.

Note that UPGRADE lines do not work for node-locked, uncounted licenses before v6.

3.3 Sample License File

This is an example of a license file for a single vendor with two features.

SERVER excellent_server 17007ea8 1700
DAEMON xyzd /etc/xyzd
FEATURE xyz_app1 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 10 1EF890030EAB
FEATURE xyz_app2 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 10 084561FE98B3

The license file above would allow the license server "excellent_server" with the hostid "17007ea8" to serve ten floating licenses for "xyz_app1" and "xyz_app2" to any user on the network.

3.4 Types of License Files

License files are created by the software vendor. License files can specify floating (concurrent) usage, node-locked (both counted and uncounted), and any combination of floating, counted, and uncounted.

3.4.1 Floating (Concurrent) Licenses

A floating license means anyone on the network can use the licensed software, up to the limit specified in the license file (also referred to as concurrent usage or network licensing). Floating licenses have no hostids on the individual FEATURE lines. Floating licenses requires an lmgrd and a vendor daemon to be running to count the concurrent usage of the licenses.

An example of a license file that provides floating licenses is:

SERVER lulu 17001234 1700
DAEMON xyzd /etc/xyzd
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 2 key1 ""
FEATURE f2 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 6 key2 ""
FEATURE f3 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 1 key3 ""

This license file specifies that two licenses for feature "f1," six licenses for feature "f2," and one license for feature "f3" are available anywhere on the network that can access the license server "lulu."

3.4.2 Node-Locked Licenses

Node-locking means the licensed software can only be used on one node. A node-locked license has a hostid on any FEATURE line that is node-locked to a particular host. There are two types of node-locked licenses; uncounted and counted.

If the number of licenses is set to 0, then the license is uncounted and unlimited use is permitted on the specified node. This configuration does not require an lmgrd or a vendor daemon because it is not going to count the concurrent usage of the features.

The following license file allows unlimited usage of feature "f1" on the nodes with hostids of "12001234" and "1700ab12":

FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 1-jan-2005 0 key1 "" 12001234
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 1-jan-2005 0 key2 "" 1700ab12

Alternately, in FLEXlm v5.0 or later, these two FEATURE lines could have been issued by your software vendor with a hostid list:

FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 1-jan-2005 0 key HOSTID="12001234 1700ab12"

If these were the only FEATURE lines in this license file, no lmgrd daemon would be necessary and you should not start one.

The following license file allows three licenses for feature "f1" to be run, but only on the node with hostid "1300ab43." In this case, the daemons should be run on the same node that runs the software, since there is no reason to run the daemons on another node.

SERVER lulu 1300ab43 1700
DAEMON xyzd /etc/xyzd
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 3 key HOSTID=1300ab43

3.4.3 Mixed Node-Locked and Floating Licenses

Uncounted node-locked and concurrent usage licenses can be mixed in the same license file.

The following license file allows unlimited use of feature "f1" on nodes "17001111" and "17002222," while allowing two other licenses for feature "f1" to be used anywhere else on the network:

SERVER lulu 17001234 1700
DAEMON xyzd C:\flexlm\xyzd.exe
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 0 key1 HOSTID=17001111
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 0 key2 HOSTID=17002222
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 2 key3

This configuration requires an lmgrd and a vendor daemon because the concurrent usage of the two licenses on the third FEATURE line is counted.

3.5 Decimal Format

The decimal format was introduced in v6. Users with older products can still use the decimal format, but they will require a copy of the lminstall command (which is part of lmutil). The lminstall utility allows the user to type in a decimal line, which is then converted to the readable format, and saved in the specified location. The mixed node-locked and floating example above looks as follows in decimal format:

xyzd-f1-01761-55296-37046-04544-00017-06551-18072-57346-18754-136
xyzd-f1-01761-55296-37046-08896-00034-235
xyzd-f1-00481-55296-17590-2

A simple demo license in readable format:

FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.00 1-jan-2005 0 key1 HOSTID=DEMO

converted to decimal:

xyzd-f1-00737-55296-1825

Note that by default lminstall converts to v6 format. It can convert to a format compatible with older versions by using lminstall -overfmt 2 (or 3, 4, 5, 5.1, 6, 7, or 7.1, depending on the FLEXlm version).

3.6 License File Order

In some cases, the ordering of lines in a license file can be crucial. Version 7+ vendor daemons and clients automatically internally sort the lines so that in most cases the optimal result is achieved. For earlier versions of FLEXlm, note the following suggestions, which are all based on the fact the checkouts are attempted on lines in the order they appear in the license file:

  1. Place FEATURE lines before INCREMENT lines for the same feature.
    The rule regarding FEATURE lines is that only the first counted FEATURE line is observed by the license server, and that if there is a FEATURE line and INCREMENT lines, the FEATURE line must appear first. (A few large, older FLEXlm-licensed companies have FEATURE lines that behave identically to INCREMENT lines, and only the rules applying to INCREMENT apply to them.)
  2. Where multiple counted FEATURE lines exist for the same feature, make sure the desired FEATURE line appears first.
    All but the first is ignored.
  3. Place node-locked, uncounted lines before floating lines for the same FEATURE.
    Otherwise, the floating license may be consumed when a node-locked would have been used, resulting in denial for other users.
  4. The placement of a USE_SERVER line affects behavior.
    A USE_SERVER line is recommended. Normally, the USE_SERVER line is placed immediately after the SERVER line. However, if there are uncounted licenses which you don't want to fail if the server is unavailable, these should be placed at the top of the file, with the USE_SERVER line following them. This only works, however, if each user that needs the uncounted license has direct access to a current copy of the file. The advantage to placing USE_SERVER right after the SERVER line is users don't need up-to-date copies of the license file.

TOC INDEX

Chapter 4
Multiple License Files

Since more than 2000 vendors have chosen FLEXlm as their license manager, chances are good that you will have to administer FLEXlm licenses from more than one vendor or multiple products from the same vendor.

4.1 Overview of Combining License Files

When you are running FLEXlm-licensed products from multiple vendors, you may need to take steps to prevent licensing conflicts during installation. There are three ways you can accomplish this:

Note that before v6, each lmgrd could read only a single license file. In the first option mentioned above, you will have more license servers to monitor; in the third option you have only one server but multiple lmgrds to administer.

If all applications and vendor daemons are FLEXlm v6+, lmgrd can process multiple license files, even when the hostids in each license file are different, so long as they refer to the same node. For example, on UNIX:

lmgrd -c license_file_path_1:license_file_path_2 ...

Your product's license file(s) define the license server(s) by host name and hostid in the SERVER line(s) in the license file. If the license files for two or more products contain identical hostids on the SERVER line(s), then these files can be combined. If the license files for two products contain different hostids on a SERVER line, then the license servers for those products will be running on different nodes and the license files cannot be combined.

If you have two or more products whose license servers run on the same node (as specified by the SERVER lines in the license files), you may be able to combine the license files into a single license file. If the SERVER lines in those files have identical hostids, then you can combine the files into a single file. If the SERVER lines have different hostids, then you must keep the license files separate.

More precisely, you can combine two license files under the following conditions:

  1. The number of SERVER lines in each file is the same.
  2. The hostid field of each SERVER line in one file exactly matches the hostid field of each SERVER line in the other file.

Some possible reasons license files may not be compatible are:

If your license files are compatible as described above, then you have the option of combining license files and running a single lmgrd, as described below in Section 4.1.1, "Combining License Files from Multiple Vendors." If the license files are not compatible, then you must keep the license files separate and run separate copies of lmgrd for each license file, as described in Section 4.1.3, "Using Separate License Files on the Same Server Node."

Note that you are not required to combine compatible license files; you always have the option of running separate lmgrds, and there is virtually no performance or system-load penalty for running separate lmgrd processes.

4.1.1 Combining License Files from Multiple Vendors

If your license files are compatible, you can combine them with any text editor. To combine license files, read all of the compatible license files into one file, then edit out the extra SERVER lines so that only one set of SERVER lines remains. Write out this data, and you have your combined license file. If you combine license files from multiple vendors, it is a good idea to keep a copy of the combined license file in each vendor's default license file location. This way, users can avoid having to set LM_LICENSE_FILE, because each package finds it's license information in the default place. On UNIX, you can do this with a symbolic link from each default location to the location of the combined license file.

4.1.2 FLEXlm Version Component Compatibility

When you combine license files for two different FLEXlm-licensed products, it may be the case that those products do not use the same version of FLEXlm. FLEXlm is designed to handle this situation. There are two basic compatibility rules for FLEXlm:

From these two compatibility rules come the simple rules for selecting which version of administration tools to use:

  1. Always use the newest version of lmgrd and the newest version of each vendor daemon.
  2. Use the newest FLEXlm utilities.

For specific application programs, you can use either the new or the old version (of course, the vendor daemon for that application must be at least as new as the application itself). See also Section G.1, "Version Compatibility and Components."

4.1.3 Using Separate License Files on the Same Server Node

You must run a separate copy of lmgrd for each license file. When you run multiple copies of lmgrd, there are two details to remember:

  1. The port number on the SERVER line of each license file must be unique. You can use a standard text editor to change the port number in each license file so that they are all different.
  2. You must make sure that you are using a compatible version of lmgrd when you start it up for a particular license file. This can be done by using an explicit path to lmgrd.

When running client programs (such as a licensed application), you can set the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to point to multiple license files. For example, you may have a license file from vendor "ABC" and a license file from vendor "XYZ" with incompatible servers. You can place the license file from vendor "ABC" into:

/usr/flexlm/abc.lic

and the license file from vendor "XYZ" into:

/usr/flexlm/xyz.lic

then set the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to point to both of them. Each name in LM_LICENSE_FILE should be separated by a colon (":") on UNIX systems, a semicolon (";") on Windows and Windows/NT systems (in FLEXlm v4.1, a comma was used on Windows and NT), and a space (" ") on VMS systems.

In the C shell:

% setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE /usr/flexlm/abc.lic:/usr/flexlm/xyz.lic

In the Korn and Bourne shells:

# LM_LICENSE_FILE=/usr/flexlm/abc.lic:/usr/flexlm/xyz.lic
# export LM_LICENSE_FILE

4.2 Using LM_LICENSE_FILE License File List

If products use different license server nodes, each set of license servers requires separate license files. (When multiple software vendors use the same set of license server nodes, the technique described above in Section 4.1, "Overview of Combining License Files," can be used to combine license files.) The resulting (multiple) license files can be installed in convenient locations. On UNIX you would set the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable as follows:

% setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE lfpath1:lfpath2:...

where lfpath1 is the path to the first license file, lfpath2 is the path to the second license file, etc.

Note: Use a colon (" : ") to separate the license file names on UNIX, on Windows and Windows/NT use a semicolon (" ; "), and on VMS use a space (" ").

Each application queries each license file in the order it is listed in LM_LICENSE_FILE. If the license server serving the license file listed in lfpath1 is unreachable, the other files listed in LM_LICENSE_FILE allow a user to obtain a license from another server. lfpathn can also be port@host, using the port number and host name from the SERVER line in the license file.

See also:

TOC INDEX

Chapter 5
Selecting Server Nodes

This chapter helps you decide which nodes to use as license server nodes.

5.1 Resources Used by the Server

This section discusses the resources used by the license server. When you select a server node, you may need to take into account the system limits on these resources. For small numbers of licenses (under about 100), most of these items should not be a problem on any workstation.

5.1.1 Sockets

When using TCP, a single vendor daemon can support as many users as the per-process system limit for file descriptors, which ranges from 256 on SunOS 4.x to 4000 on DEC Alpha. When no more file descriptors are available to a daemon, additional vendor daemons are spawned to allow for extra file descriptors, though this is not recommended. When using UDP, there is no limit to the number of end users per vendor daemon process, because they can share a single socket in the vendor daemon (UDP has other drawbacks, and TCP is preferred). If there are more than 250 concurrent clients from a SunOS vendor daemon, it may be a good idea to move the server to a different OS, since all other OSs support more file descriptors. If there are more than 1000 concurrent clients being supported by a single vendor daemon, then it's probably good to split the license file into more than one file, from different servers, to lighten the networking traffic (which will require the ISV to agree to issue new licenses). Clients can check out licenses from multiple servers using a license file list via the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable.

Each client connected to a license server uses one socket. The total number of sockets used by the license server programs is slightly larger than the total number of simultaneous clients.

On older SCO systems, the default number of sockets may be set fairly low; if you choose to run a server on such a machine, you may need to reconfigure your kernel to have more sockets.

The number of sockets available for Windows 95 clients is about 60. In general, NT is preferred for server systems, where there is no such limit, and the operating system is better designed for server processes.

5.1.2 CPU Time

For small numbers of clients, the license servers use very little CPU time. The servers might have only a few seconds of CPU time after many days.

For a large number of clients (who are each exchanging heartbeat messages with the server), or for high checkout/checkin activity levels (hundreds per second), the amount of CPU time consumed by the server may start to become significant, although, even here, CPU usage is normally not high. In this case, you may need to ensure that the server machine you select will have enough CPU cycles to spare.

Note: GLOBEtrotter Software has rarely encountered a situation where CPU cycles were an issue.

5.1.3 Disk Space

The only output files created by the license servers are the debug and report log files. The report log files are used to generate accurate usage reports by SAMreport. These log files contain one line for each checkout and one line for each checkin. If you have a lot of license activity, these log files will grow very large. You will need to consider where to put these files and how often to delete or prune them. The license administrator can opt not to log messages to the debug log file if disk space is at a premium. See Section 6.2.10, "NOLOG," and Section 6.2.11, "REPORTLOG."

Note that the log files should be local files on the server machine(s) to avoid networking dependencies.

Switching Output of the Debug Log File on UNIX Systems

On UNIX, the debug log file output can be switched after the daemons are running. The technique to do this involves piping the stdout of lmgrd to a shell script that appends to the file for each line.

This is done as follows:

Instead of the "normal" startup:

% lmgrd > LOG

Start lmgrd this way:

% lmgrd | sh -c 'while read line; do echo "$line" >> LOG ; done'

With this startup method, the output file LOG can be renamed and a new log file will be created. You could even make LOG a symbolic link and change the value of the link to switch the log file.

5.1.4 Memory

The FLEXlm daemons use little memory. On SunOS, lmgrd uses approximately160 KB and the vendor daemons use approximately 180 KB each, although memory usage increases in the vendor daemon with the size of the license file and the number of concurrent users.

5.1.5 Network Bandwidth

FLEXlm sends relatively small amounts of data across the network. Each transaction, such as a checkout or checkin, is typically satisfied with less than 1 KB of data transferred. This means that FLEXlm licensing can be effectively run over slow networks (such as dial-up SLIP lines) for small numbers of clients.

For a large number of clients (hundreds), each of which will be exchanging heartbeat messages with the vendor daemon, the network bandwidth used may start to become significant. In this case you should run client and server on the same local area network, which may require splitting licenses between two files for two servers. Users can use a license file list in the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to have effective access to both servers.

In high-traffic networks, with FLEXlm clients older than v5, you may also want to avoid setting LM_LICENSE_FILE to a port@host address. Instead, the license administrator should place a copy of the license file in a file system local to the application. See Section 3.1, "Specifying Location of the License File."

5.2 Remote Mounted Disks

GLOBEtrotter Software recommends that you do not use remote mounted disks when you run the license server. In other words, we recommend that lmgrd, the vendor daemons, the license file, and the debug and report log files are all on locally mounted disks. If any of these files is on a remote mounted disk, you double the points of failure which could lead to a temporary loss of all of your licenses. When all files are mounted locally, the licenses will be available as long as the server machine is up; but when the files are on a different machine, then the loss of either the license server machine or the file server machine will cause the licenses to be unavailable.

5.3 Redundant Servers

If all the end-user data is on a single file server, then there is no need for redundant servers, and GLOBEtrotter Software recommends the use of a single server node for the FLEXlm daemons. If the end user's data is split among two or more server nodes and work is still possible when one of these nodes goes down or off the network, then multiple server nodes can be employed. In all cases, an effort should be made to select stable systems as server nodes; in other words, do not pick systems that are frequently rebooted or shut down for one reason or another. Redundant license server nodes can be any supported server nodes--it is not required that they be the same architecture or operating system.

FLEXlm supports two methods of redundancy: redundancy via a license file list in the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable and a set of three redundant license servers.

With LM_LICENSE_FILE list redundancy, each one of a group of license servers serves a subset of the total licenses. The end user sets LM_LICENSE_FILE to a list of license files, where each license file refers to one of the license servers. The application then tries each server in the list, in order, until it succeeds or gets to the end of the list.

With three-server redundancy, if any two of the three license servers are up and running (two out of three license servers is referred to as a quorum), the system is functional and hands out its total complement of licenses.

See also Section 4.2, "Using LM_LICENSE_FILE License File List."

5.3.1 Redundancy via License File List

This is best explained by example. If ten licenses are desired for both "f1" and "f2," the ISV would issue two sets of licenses with a count of 5 for each of "f1" and "f2." The server nodes (unlike three-server redundancy) can be physically distant.

The license files would look like:

License 1 for "chicago"

SERVER chicago 17007ea8 1700
DAEMON xyzd /etc/mydaemon
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 5 26C7DD9C0186
FEATURE f2 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 5 8CE46C57041D

License 2 for "tokyo"

SERVER tokyo 17007ea8 1700
DAEMON xyzd /etc/mydaemon
FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 5 16BE40E1D98D
FEATURE f2 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 5 6DB6F3E402DF

The user in Chicago could set LM_LICENSE_FILE to:

1700@chicago:1700@tokyo

The user in Tokyo could set LM_LICENSE_FILE to:

1700@tokyo:1700@chicago

The application attempts the first server in the list, and if that fails for any reason, the second server is tried.

5.3.2 Three-Server Redundancy

These three-server redundant servers should have excellent communications and should be on the same subnet. Often this means that the three servers should be located physically close to each other. This form of redundancy requires that the servers exchange heartbeats periodically, and poor communications can cause poor performance. You should never configure redundant servers with slow communications or dial-up links.

Three-server redundancy does not provide load-balancing. Use LM_LICENSE_FILE list instead for this type of redundancy. This is because with three-server redundancy, only one of the three servers is "master," capable of issuing licenses. Since all clients must contact the "master," all clients must have reliable networking to a single node.

5.3.3 Comparing Three-Server to License File List

Are there any drawbacks to using the license file list for redundancy?

Yes. By default, once a license job has successfully checked out a license from one host, all subsequent checkouts must be satisfied from the same host. If the application requires more than one license, this could result in a license denial when the license is available on another server. An application can bypass this restriction if it is coded with the use of multiple FLEXlm license jobs. Only your application vendor can tell you if their application is programmed in this manner.

If the application supports license queueing, all licenses are only queued from the first host on the list.

Finally, if one server becomes unavailable, some licenses will be unavailable.

When is it recommended to use a license file list for redundancy rather than true redundant servers?

5.4 Counted vs. Uncounted Licenses

The license file determines whether a license server is needed. If all the FEATURE (or INCREMENT) lines have a license count of 0 (unlimited) or "uncounted" (FLEXlm v6 or later only), then no server is needed. This type of license is called uncounted. Alternatively, if any FEATURE lines have a non-zero license count, then a server is required to count those licenses. If a vendor wants to use FLEXlm without a server, they must issue uncounted licenses.

With FLEXlm v5 or later, the license server can serve uncounted licenses as well. This is done so that the report log file will include transactions for all license requests, which can then be reported on by SAMreport. To do this, include a SERVER line in the license file, and put the USE_SERVER line immediately after the SERVER line. The vendor daemon will serve the uncounted licenses, and the USE_SERVER line indicates to applications that they will be authorized by the server.

TOC INDEX

Chapter 6
The Options File

The options file allows the license administrator to control various operating parameters of FLEXlm. Users can be identified by their user name, host name, display, IP address, or PROJECT (which is set with the LM_PROJECT environment variable).

Specifically, the license administrator can:

Options files allow you, as the license administrator, to be as secure or open with licenses as you like.

Lines in the options file were limited to 200 characters prior to FLEXlm v3.0. In v3.0 and later, the line length is 2048 characters. FLEXlm v4.0 allows the "\" character as a continuation character in options file lines.

Identifying users by LM_PROJECT requires a v5+ application and v7+ vendor daemon.

6.1 Creating an Options File

To create an options file:

  1. Use the appropriate options listed in Section 6.2, "Options File Syntax," to create the options file using any text editor. You can put the options file anywhere; however, we recommend that the options file for vendor "XYZ" (whose vendor daemon is xyzd) be placed in:
    UNIX: /a/b/xyzd/licenses/xyzd.opt
    Windows: C:\a\b\xyzd\licenses\xyzd.opt
  2. Add the path to the options file in the license file as the fourth field on the DAEMON line for the application's vendor daemon. For example:
    DAEMON xyzd /etc/xyzd /a/b/xyzd/licenses/xyzd.opt
    would enable the xyzd vendor daemon to look at the specified options file. In FLEXlm v5 or later, you can put options= before the path. In FLEXlm v6 or later, adding the options path to the license file is optional. Instead, name the file vendor.opt, where vendor is the vendor daemon name, and place it in the same directory as the license used by lmgrd, and it will automatically be used at server startup.

6.2 Options File Syntax

Below is an overview of the options file syntax. See Section 6.5, "Options File Examples," for examples and additional information.

Each line of the file controls one option. The options are:

EXCLUDE
Deny a user access to a feature.
EXCLUDEALL
Deny a user access to all features served by this
vendor daemon.
GROUP
Define a group of users for use with any options.
HOST_GROUP
Define a group of hosts for use with any options
(v4.0+).
INCLUDE
Allow a user to use a feature.
INCLUDEALL
Allow a user to use all features served by this
vendor daemon.
LINGER
Cause licenses to be held by the vendor daemon
for a period after the application checks them in or
exits.
MAX
Limit usage for a particular feature/group--
prioritizes usage among users.
MAX_OVERDRAFT
Limit overdraft usage to less than the amount
specified in the license.
NOLOG
Turn off logging of certain items in the debug log
file.
REPORTLOG
Specify that a report log file suitable for use by the
SAMreport license usage reporting tool be written.
RESERVE
Reserve licenses for a user.
TIMEOUT
Specify idle timeout for a feature, returning it to
the free pool for use by another user.
TIMEOUTALL
Set timeout on all features.

You can include comments in your options file by starting each comment line with a pound sign "#." Everything in an options file is case sensitive. Be sure that user names and feature names, for example, are entered correctly.

Feature Specification

Starting with FLEXlm v5, you can specify options for a particular line of a given feature name, as follows:

feature:keyword=value

For example:

f1:VERSION=2.0

You can specify a feature by any of the following fields:

VERSION=, HOSTID=, EXPDATE=, KEY=, SIGN=, VENDOR_STRING=, ISSUER=, NOTICE=, dist_info=, user_info=, asset_info=

In FLEXlm v5.11 or later, you can use a package name in place of a feature name, and the option will apply to all of the components in the package.

The following option keywords restrict who may use licenses or where licenses may be used: EXCLUDE, EXCLUDEALL, INCLUDE, INCLUDEALL, MAX, and RESERVE. These options take a type argument, which specifies whether the restriction is based on USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET, or PROJECT:

On PCs, the USER, HOST and DISPLAY name are all set to the PC's host name.

The types listed above take a list of members, separated by spaces. For example:

EXCLUDE coolsoft USER joe barbara susan

Other valid types are GROUP and HOST_GROUP. These allow you to define a group of users or hosts on a separate line in the options file, then use those group names instead of an explicit list. For example:

GROUP stars joe barbara susan
EXCLUDE coolsoft GROUP stars

6.2.1 EXCLUDE

EXCLUDE feature[:keyword=value] type {list | group_name}

Excludes a list or pre-defined group of users, etc. from the list of who is allowed to use the feature. Excluded users will not be allowed to use the feature. EXCLUDE overrides INCLUDE.

feature
Name of the feature being affected.
type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to exclude.
group_name
Name of the group to exclude.

To exclude the user "hank" from the list of users able to use feature "f1":

EXCLUDE f1 USER hank

6.2.2 EXCLUDEALL

EXCLUDEALL type {list | group_name}

Excludes a list or pre-defined group of users, etc. from the list of who is allowed to use all features served by this vendor daemon.

type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to exclude.
group_name
Name of the group to exclude.

To exclude any user on the machine "chaos" from using all features served by this vendor daemon:

EXCLUDEALL HOST chaos

6.2.3 GROUP

GROUP group_name user_list

Defines a group of users for use in INCLUDE, INCLUDEALL, EXCLUDE, EXCLUDEALL, and RESERVE option lines.

group_name
Name of the group being defined.
user_list
List of user names in that group.

To define the group "Hackers" consisting of "bob," "howard," and "james":

GROUP Hackers bob howard james

Note: In FLEXlm v3.0, multiple GROUP lines will add all the specified users into the group. Pre-v3.0 FLEXlm daemons do not allow multiple GROUP lines to concatenate--the last GROUP line would define the GROUP.

Note: In FLEXlm v4.0 or later, USER_GROUP is an alias for GROUP.

6.2.4 HOST_GROUP

HOST_GROUP group_name host_list

Defines a group of hosts for use in INCLUDE, INCLUDEALL, EXCLUDE, EXCLUDEALL, and RESERVE option lines. Multiple HOST_GROUP lines will add all the specified hosts into the group.

group_name
Name of the group being defined.
host_list
List of host names in that group.

To define the host group "Pacific" consisting of "tokyo," "seattle," and "auckland":

HOST_GROUP Pacific tokyo seattle auckland

6.2.5 INCLUDE

INCLUDE feature[:keyword=value] type {list | group_name}

Includes a list or pre-defined group of users, etc. in the list of who is allowed to use the feature. Anyone not in an INCLUDE statement will not be allowed to use that feature. EXCLUDE overrides INCLUDE.

feature
Name of the feature being affected.
type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to include.
group_name
Name of the group to include.

To include user "bob" in the list of users able to use feature "f1":

INCLUDE f1 USER bob

Note: INCLUDE is required for USER_BASED or HOST_BASED features. The system administrator specifies which users are allowed to use the product, via INCLUDE, and the license limits the number of users that can be INCLUDEd.

6.2.6 INCLUDEALL

INCLUDEALL type {list | group_name}

Includes a list or pre-defined group of users, etc. in the list of who is allowed to use all features served by this vendor daemon. Anyone not in an INCLUDEALL statement will not be allowed to use these features.

type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to include.
group_name
Name of the group to include.

To allow the user "jane" to use all features served by this vendor daemon:

INCLUDEALL USER jane

6.2.7 LINGER

LINGER feature[:keyword=value] seconds

Rarely used. This causes the daemon to "hold on" to the license for feature for seconds after the application checks the license in or exits. This could be useful for short-duration programs which will be used many times in a row by the same user, to ensure that the user will be able to re-acquire the license repeatedly. On the other hand, other users have to wait until the first user is completely finished, plus a linger interval. This is useful only if the application uses duplicate grouping. Otherwise, LINGER will cause you to use extra licenses. Contact your software vendor for information about how they implemented duplicate grouping in their product.

If license lingering is set and lmremove is used to reclaim the license, lmremove will start, but not override, the license's linger time.

6.2.8 MAX

(v5.11+ vendor daemon only.)

MAX num_lic feature[:keyword=value] type {list | group_name}

Limits usage for a group or user.

num_lic
Usage limit for this user or group.
feature
Feature this limit applies to.
type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to limit.
group_name
Name of the group to limit.

6.2.9 MAX_OVERDRAFT

MAX_OVERDRAFT feature[:keyword=value] num_lic

Limits OVERDRAFT license usage below the OVERDRAFT allowed by the license file.

6.2.10 NOLOG

NOLOG { IN | OUT | DENIED | QUEUED }

Suppresses logging the selected type of event in the debug log file.

To turn off logging of checkins:

NOLOG IN

To turn off logging of checkouts and queued requests two separate NOLOG lines are required:

NOLOG DENIED
NOLOG QUEUED

Note: License administrators might use this option to reduce the size of the debug log file.

6.2.11 REPORTLOG

REPORTLOG [+]report_log_path

REPORTLOG specifies the report log file for this vendor daemon. We recommend preceding the report_log_path with a + character to append logging entries, otherwise the file will be overwritten each time the daemon is started.

Note: SAMreport, a separate product available from GLOBEtrotter, is used to process FLEXlm report log files. SAMreport can process only report log files, not debug log files.
Reporting on Projects with LM_PROJECT

The SAMreport report writer can report on "projects." A project is set up by having all users working on a project set their LM_PROJECT environment variable (or registry on Windows) to a string that describes the project. SAMreport can then group usage by project, as defined by what LM_PROJECT was set to when the application was run.

See also Appendix C, "FLEXlm Environment Variables."

6.2.12 RESERVE

RESERVE num_lic feature[:keyword=value] type
{list | group_name}

Reserves licenses for a specific user.

num_lic
Number of license to reserve for this user or
group.
feature
Feature this reservation applies to.
type
One of USER, HOST, DISPLAY, INTERNET,
PROJECT, GROUP, or HOST_GROUP.
list
List of type members to reserve licenses for.
group_name
Name of group to reserve licenses for.

To reserve one license of feature "f1" for user "mel":

RESERVE 1 f1 USER mel

Note: Any licenses reserved for a user are dedicated to that user. Even when that user is not actively using the license it will be unavailable to other users. However, a RESERVEd license will not cause an overdraft to be reported by SAMreport if the license is not actually in use.

6.2.13 TIMEOUT

TIMEOUT feature[:keyword=value] seconds

Sets the time after which an inactive license is reclaimed by the vendor daemon.

feature
Name of the feature.
seconds
Number of seconds after which inactive license is
reclaimed.

To set the timeout for feature "f1" to one hour (3600 seconds):

TIMEOUT f1 3600

TIMEOUT checks in the licenses if the process has been "idle" for a period longer than the specified time period, and someone else wants the license. The daemon declares a process idle when it has not heard from the process (the client sends heartbeats). The application must explicitly declare itself idle for this to work, or (on UNIX) the application must be stopped (^Z). That is, unless the application explicitly supports this feature, it will not work. Contact your software vendor for information about how they implemented this feature in their product.

The application vendor can also disable the timeout feature, in which case the TIMEOUT option has no effect. The vendor can set a minimum value for the timeout. If you specify a timeout value smaller than the minimum, the minimum is used. The default minimum value is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

If you do not specify a timeout value in your options file, then there will be no timeout for that feature. With a pre-v5 vendor daemon, licenses are only freed by TIMEOUT when a new request for a license would require a license that can be freed with TIMEOUT. With v5, licenses are freed when they time out.

6.2.14 TIMEOUTALL

(v5.11+ vendor daemon only.)

TIMEOUTALL seconds

Same as TIMEOUT, but applies to all features.

6.3 How the Vendor Daemon Uses the Options File

When the vendor daemon is started by lmgrd, the vendor daemon reads its options file. There can only be one options file per vendor daemon and each vendor daemon needs its own options file. lmreread does not cause the vendor daemon to reread its options file; for any changes in the options file to take effect, the vendor daemon must be restarted.

6.4 Rules of Precedence in Options Files

Before you can use options to utilize licenses effectively you must understand the options file precedence. INCLUDE and EXCLUDE statements can be combined in the same options file and control access to the same features. When doing so, keep in mind the following:

Once you create an INCLUDE or EXCLUDE list, everyone else is implicitly "outside" the group. This feature allows you, as an administrator, the ability to control licenses without having to explicitly list each user that you wish to allow or deny access to. In other words, there are two approaches; you can either:

6.5 Options File Examples

The following information gives some examples of options files intended to illustrate ways to effectively control access to your licenses.

6.5.1 Simple Options File Example

RESERVE 1 compile USER robert
RESERVE 3 compile HOST mainline
EXCLUDE compile USER lori
NOLOG QUEUED

This options file would:

The sum total of the licenses reserved must be less than or equal to the number of licenses specified in the FEATURE line. In the example above, there must be a minimum of four licenses on the "compile" FEATURE line. If fewer licenses are available, only the first set of reservations (up to the license limit) is used.

If this data were in file /a/b/xyzd/licenses/xyzd.opt, then you would modify the license file DAEMON line as follows:

DAEMON xyzd /etc/xyzd /a/b/xyzd/licenses/xyzd.opt

6.5.2 Limiting Access for Multiple Users

Each INCLUDE, INCLUDEALL, EXCLUDE, EXCLUDEALL, and RESERVE line must have a single user name (or group) listed. To affect more than one user name create a GROUP. For example to exclude "bob," "howard," and "james" from using the feature called "toothbrush" we could create the following options file:

EXCLUDE toothbrush USER bob
EXCLUDE toothbrush USER howard
EXCLUDE toothbrush USER james

However, there is an easier way. Create a GROUP and exclude the list of users from using the feature. Like the previous example, the following options file would exclude "bob," "howard," and "james" from using the feature called "toothbrush":

# First define the group "Hackers"
GROUP Hackers bob howard james
# Then exclude the group
EXCLUDE toothbrush GROUP Hackers

Now when you want to allow or deny access to any feature to that group, you have an alias list to make it simple.

The GROUP function works for a list of user names prior to FLEXlm v4.0. To control access to multiple displays (and hosts in pre-v4.0 FLEXlm) you must use multiple option lines in your options file. For example, in pre-v4.0 FLEXlm, to exclude all users logged in on the hosts "fred" and "barney" from using a feature called "f1," add these lines to your options file:

EXCLUDE f1 USER fred
EXCLUDE f1 USER barney

With a FLEXlm v4+ vendor daemon, you can use HOST_GROUP to allow, deny, or reserve licenses for multiple hosts. For example, to exclude all users logged in on the hosts "fred" and "barney" from using a feature called "f1," add these lines to your options file:

HOST_GROUP writers fred barney
EXCLUDE f1 HOST_GROUP writers

Note: See Section 6.2.3, "GROUP," and Section 6.2.4, "HOST_GROUP," for more information about defining groups.

6.5.3 EXCLUDE Example

#First Define the group "painters"
GROUP painters picasso mondrian klee
EXCLUDE spell GROUP painters
EXCLUDE spell USER bob
EXCLUDE spell INTERNET 123.123.123.*

This options file would:

Note that "bob" could have been added to the group "painters." However, "painters" might be used for some other purpose in the future so the license administrator chose to handle "bob" as a special case here. In this case, the two EXCLUDE statements concatenate to create a list of four users.

6.5.4 INCLUDE Example

INCLUDE paint USER picasso
INCLUDE paint USER mondrian
INCLUDE paint HOST bigbrush

This options file would:

TOC INDEX

Chapter 7
License Administration Tools

FLEXlm provides utilities for the license administrator to help manage the licensing activities on the network. These utilities are:

This chapter also contains command-line syntax for lmgrd.

7.1 Running Administration Tools

Beginning in FLEXlm v2.4, all FLEXlm utility programs (except lmgrd) are packaged as a single executable called lmutil. lmutil can either be installed as the individual commands (either by creating links to the individual command names, or making copies of lmutil as the individual command names), or the commands can be run as lmutil command, for example, lmutil lmstat, or lmutil lmdown. On Windows systems, the lmutil command forms of the commands are available. There is also a graphical user interface for these commands on Windows--see Section 7.15, "License Administration Tools--lmtools for Windows."

7.2 Universal lmutil Arguments

The following are valid arguments for all lmutil utilities:

-c license_file_path
Most lmutil utilities need to know the
path to the license file. This can be
specified with a -c
license_file_path argument, or by
setting the LM_LICENSE_FILE
environment variable. Otherwise, the
default location is used. Version 7+
utilities also honor all
VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE environment
variables. Some utilities can take more
than one license file path in a license file
list separated by colons on UNIX and
semi-colons on Windows.
-v
Prints the FLEXlm version of the utility.
-verbose
Prints longer description for all errors
found. The output from the utilities may
be harder to read with this option, but is
useful for diagnostics. (v6+ only)
-e filename
Redirects error message to a file. (v7+)

Note: The lmdown, lmremove, and lmreread commands are "privileged." If you have started lmgrd with the -2 -p switch, you must be a license administrator to run any of these three utilities. A license administrator is a member of the UNIX "lmadmin" group, or, if the "lmadmin" group does not exist, a member of group 0. In addition, lmgrd -x can disable lmdown and/or lmremove.

7.3 lmcksum

The lmcksum program (FLEXlm v2.4 or later) will perform a checksum of a license file. This is useful to verify data entry errors at your location. lmcksum will print a line-by-line checksum for the file as well as an overall file checksum. lmcksum takes the -k switch to force the encryption key checksum to be case-sensitive.

lmcksum will ignore all fields that do not enter into the encryption key computation; thus the server node name and port number, the vendor daemon and options file paths, and lowercase keyword=value pairs on FEATURE/INCREMENT lines are not checksummed. In addition, lmcksum will treat non-case-sensitive fields correctly (in general, lmcksum is not case sensitive).

For FEATURE lines that contain ck=nnn, lmcksum prints simply OK or BAD.

Usage is:

lmcksum [-k] [-c license_file_path]

where -c license_file_path designates the license file to checksum. By default, lmcksum uses license.dat in the current directory (unlike other lmutil commands). Specify -c license_file_path if you want to checksum another license file.

Example output is:

lmcksum--Copyright (C) 1989, 1997 GLOBEtrotter Software, Inc.
lmcksum: using license file "/a/b/xyzd/licenses/license.dat189: SERVER speedy 08002b32b161 2837
 189: SERVER speedy 08002b32b161 2837
 166: DAEMON xyzd C:\flexlm\xyzd.exe
   8: FEATURE f1 xyzd 1.000 01-jan-2005 0 3B2BC333A0BF
OK: 231: FEATURE f2 xyzd 1.0 01-jan-0 1 8B1C3001535E \
        DUP_GROUP=HD ck=231
 109: (overall file checksum)

7.4 lmdiag

lmdiag (FLEXlm v4.0 or later) allows you to diagnose problems when you cannot check out a license.

Usage is:

lmdiag [-c license_file_list] [-n] [feature[:keyword=value]]

where:

-c license_file_list
Diagnose the specified file(s).
-n
Run in non-interactive mode; lmdiag
will not prompt for any input in this
mode. In this mode, extended
connection diagnostics are not
available.
feature
Diagnose this feature only.
keyword=value
If a license file contains multiple lines
for a particular feature, you can select
a particular line for lmdiag to report
on. For example:
lmdiag f1:HOSTID=12345678
will attempt a checkout on the line
with the hostid "12345678." keyword
can be one of the following:
VERSION, HOSTID, EXPDATE,
KEY, VENDOR_STRING, ISSUER

If no feature is specified, lmdiag will operate on all features in the license file(s) in your list. lmdiag will first print information about the license, then attempt to check out each license. If the checkout succeeds, lmdiag will indicate this. If the checkout fails, lmdiag will give you the reason for the failure. If the checkout fails because lmdiag cannot connect to the license server, then you have the option of running "extended connection diagnostics."

These extended diagnostics attempt to connect to each port on the license server node, and can detect if the port number in the license file is incorrect. lmdiag will indicate each port number that is listening, and if it is an lmgrd process, lmdiag will indicate this as well. If lmdiag finds the vendor daemon for the feature being tested, then it will indicate the correct port number for the license file to correct the problem.

See also Section B.2, "FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS."

7.5 lmdown

The lmdown utility allows for the graceful shutdown of all license daemons (both lmgrd and all vendor daemons) on all nodes.

Usage is:

lmdown [-c license_file_list] [-vendor vendor] [-q] [-all]

where:

-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
-vendor vendor
Shut down only this vendor daemon.
lmgrd will always continue running if
this option is specified. Requires v6.0
lmdown and lmgrd (the vendor
daemon can be any version).
-q
Don't prompt or print a header.
Otherwise lmdown asks "Are you
sure? [y/n]: ."
-all
If multiple servers are specified,
automatically shuts down all of them.
Otherwise, only one is shutdown. -q is
implied with -all. (v7+)

You may want to protect the execution of lmdown, since shutting down the servers causes users to lose their licenses. See the -2 -p or the -x options in Section 7.6, "lmgrd," for details about securing access to lmdown.

If lmdown encounters more than one server (for example if -c specifies a directory with many *.lic files), a choice of license servers to shut down is presented.

To stop and restart a single vendor daemon, use lmdown -vendor vendor, then use lmreread -vendor vendor to restart the vendor daemon.

When shutting down redundant servers, there is a one-minute delay before the servers shut down. lmdown will shut down all three license servers of a set of redundant license servers. If you need to shut down one of a set of redundant license servers (not recommended because you are left with two points of failure), you must kill both the lmgrd and vendor daemon processes on that license server machine.

Note: Do not use kill -9 to shut down the license servers.

See also Section 7.11, "lmreread."

7.6 lmgrd

lmgrd is the main daemon program for FLEXlm. When you invoke lmgrd, it looks for a license file which contains information about vendors and features. On UNIX systems, it is strongly recommended that lmgrd be run as a non-privileged user (not root).

Usage is:

lmgrd [-c license_file_list] [-l debug_log_path]
[-2 -p] [-x lmdown] [-x lmremove] [-z ] [-v]

where:

-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
-l debug_log_path
Write debugging information to file
debug_log. This option uses the letter
l, not the numeral 1.
-2 -p
Restricts usage of lmdown, lmreread,
and lmremove to a FLEXlm
administrator who is by default root. If
there a UNIX group called "lmadmin,"
then use is restricted to only members
of that group. If root is not a member
of this group, then root does not have
permission to use any of the above
utilities. If -2 -p is used when
starting lmgrd, no user on Windows
can shut down the license server with
lmdown.
-x lmdown
Disable the lmdown command (no user
can run lmdown). If lmdown is
disabled, you will need to stop lmgrd
via kill pid (UNIX) or stop the
lmgrd and vendor daemon processes
through the Task Manager or NT
Service (Windows). On UNIX, be sure
the kill command does not have a -9
argument. (v4+ lmgrd)
-x lmremove
Disable the lmremove command (no
user can run lmremove). (v4+ lmgrd)
-z
Run in foreground. The default
behavior is to run in the background.
Windows: pre-v7, lmgrd always runs
in the foreground. In v7+, lmgrd runs
in the background by default. If -l
debug_log_path is present, then no
windows are used, but if no -l
argument specified, separate windows
are used for lmgrd and each vendor
daemon.
-v
Prints lmgrd version number and
copyright and exits.

Note: Pre-v6 lmgrd on Windows required -app argument when not run as a service.

7.7 lmhostid

The lmhostid utility reports the hostid of a any machine whose platform is supported by FLEXlm. The default hostid type is displayed for a platform, unless an optional hostid type is specified and supported by that platform.

Usage is:

lmhostid [-n] [type]
where type is one of:
[-internet] (optional on all platforms)
[-vsn] [-flexid] [-cpu[32|64|96]] (optional on Windows)
[-ether] (optional on HP)

-n
No header is printed, only the hostid is printed.
-internet
IP address in ###.###.###.### format.
-vsn
Volume Serial Number of the Windows C:\
drive.
-flexid
GLOBEtrotter dongle-based hostid. (Windows)
-cpu[32|64|96]
Pentium III hostid for Windows. Requires
FLEXlm v7.0d+. The cpuid is turned off by
default, so it must be enabled, which is normally
performed in the BIOS Setup (usually pressing
the DEL key during system boot). The full ID is
96-bit, and this is what must be used for a truly
unique ID, but duplicate 32-bit hostids are
expected to be rare, if they occur at all. Where
available, this the recommended hostid type.
-ether
Ethernet address. On HP, the default hostid is
the true system hostid (from uname -i), and is
recommended, but partly for historic reasons,
the ethernet address is also available as a hostid.

The output of this command looks as follows:

lmhostid - Copyright (c) 1989, 1997 Globetrotter Software, Inc.
The FLEXlm hostid of this machine is "69021c89"

See also Appendix A, "Hostids for FLEXlm-Supported Machines."

7.8 lminstall

Introduced in v6.0, lminstall is designed primarily for typing in decimal format licenses to generate a readable format license file.

Usage is:

lminstall [-i in_lic_file ] [-maxlen n] \
[-o out_lic_file] \
[-overfmt {2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5.1 | 6 | 7 | 7.1}] [-odecimal]

Normally, to convert from decimal to readable format, lminstall is used with no arguments; you are prompted for the name of the output license file. The default file name is today's date in yyyymmdd.lic format. The file should be moved to the application's default license file directory, if specified by the software vendor. Otherwise, use the LM_LICENSE_FILE or VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE environment variables to specify the directory where the *.lic files are located.

Decimal format input is verified by a checksum of each line.

To finish entering, type q on a line by itself or enter two blank lines.

When an input file is specified with no output file specified, output goes to stdout; if neither input nor output file is specified, lminstall assumes that input will come from stdin and prompts the user for an output file name.

lminstall can also be used to convert licenses from readable to decimal format, and between different versions of FLEXlm license formats.

To convert from readable to decimal:

% lminstall -i in_lic_file -o out_lic_file -odecimal

To convert to FLEXlm v5.1 format:

% lminstall -i in_lic_file -o out_lic_file -overfmt 5.1

To enforce a maximum line length of, for example, 50 characters:

% lminstall -maxlen 50

Conversion errors are reported as necessary. lminstall has a limit of 1000 lines of input.

7.9 lmnewlog

The lmnewlog utility switches the report log file by moving the existing report log information to a new file, then starting a new report log with the original report log file name. If you rotate report logs with lmnewlog instead of lmswitchr, you will not have to change the file name in the REPORTLOG line of the vendor's options file.

Usage is:

lmnewlog [-c license_file_list] feature renamed_report_log

or:

lmnewlog [-c license_file_list] vendor renamed_report_log

where:

-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
feature
Any feature in this license file.
vendor
Vendor daemon in this license file.
renamed_report_log
New file path where existing report
log information is to be moved.

Note: lmnewlog works only with FLEXlm v7+ vendor daemons. Ask your vendor for an updated version of their vendor daemon.

7.10 lmremove

The lmremove utility allows you to remove a single user's license for a specified feature. This is only needed when a client node crashes, since that's the only condition where a license is not automatically freed. If the application is active, it will re-checkout the license after it is freed by lmremove.

Usage is:

lmremove [-c license_file_list] feature user user_host display

or

lmremove [-c license_file_list] -h feature server_host port handle

where:

-c license_file_list
Specify license file(s).
feature
Name of the feature checked out by the
user.
user
Name of the user whose license you are
removing, as reported by lmstat -a.
user_host
Name of the host the user is logged into,
as reported by lmstat -a.
display
Name of the display where the user is
working, as reported by lmstat -a.
server_host
Name of the host on which the license
server is running.
port
Port number where the license server is
running, as reported by lmstat -a.
handle
License handle, as reported by lmstat
-a.

The user, user_host, display, server_host, port, and handle information must be obtained from the output of lmstat -a.

lmremove removes all instances of user on user_host and display from usage of feature. If the optional -c license_file_list is specified, the indicated file(s) is used as the license file. You should protect the execution of lmremove, because removing a user's license can be disruptive. See the -x or -2 -p options in Section 7.6, "lmgrd," for details about securing access to lmremove.

The -h variation uses the server_host, port, and license handle, as reported by lmstat -a. Consider this example lmstat -a output:

joe nirvana /dev/ttyp5 (v1.000) (cloud9/7654 102), start Fri 10/29 18:40

In this example, the user is "joe," the user host is "nirvana," the display is "/dev/typp5," the server host is "cloud9," the port is "7654," and the license handle is "102."

To remove this license, issue one of the following commands:

lmremove f1 joe nirvana /dev/ttyp5

or

lmremove -h f1 cloud9 7654 102

When removing by handle, if licenses are grouped as duplicates, all duplicate licenses will also be removed. If license lingering is set and lmremove is used to reclaim the license, lmremove will start, but not override, the license's linger time.

7.11 lmreread

The lmreread utility causes the license daemon to reread the license file and start any new vendor daemons that have been added. In addition, all running daemons will be signaled to reread the license file for changes in feature licensing information. If the optional vendor daemon name is specified, only the named daemon will reread the license file (in this case, lmgrd will not reread the license file).

Usage is:

lmreread [-c license_file_list] [-vendor vendor] [-all]

where:

-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
-vendor vendor
Only this one vendor daemon should
reread the license file. lmgrd will
restart the vendor daemon if necessary.
Requires v6+ lmreread and lmgrd
(the vendor daemon can be any
version).
-all
If more than one lmgrd is specified,
instructs all lmgrds to reread. (v7+)

You may want to protect the execution of lmreread. See the -2 -p and -x options in Section 7.6, "lmgrd," for details about securing access to lmreread.

To stop and restart a single vendor daemon, use lmdown -vendor vendor, then use lmreread -vendor vendor, which restarts the vendor daemon.

Note: If you use the -c license_file_list option, the license file(s) specified will be read by lmreread, not by lmgrd; lmgrd rereads the file it read originally. Also, lmreread cannot be used to change server node names or port numbers.

Note: Vendor daemons will not reread their option files as a result of lmreread.

7.12 lmstat

The lmstat utility helps you monitor the status of all network licensing activities, including:

lmstat prints information that it receives from the license server, therefore it will not return any information about users of node-locked uncounted or DEMO licenses, unless the server's license file includes the node-locked licenses and the client is not reading the license file (via @host, port@host or USE_SERVER). Queued users and licenses shared due to duplicate grouping are also not returned by lmstat.

Usage is:

lmstat [-a] [-A] [-c license_file_list] [-f [feature]]
[-S [vendor]]

where:

-a
Display all information about.
-A
List all active licenses.
-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
-f [feature]
List users of feature.
-S [vendor]
List all users of vendor's features.

lmremove requires the output of lmstat -a. The output of lmstat -a looks similar to:

License server status: 27000@myhost1
 License file(s) on myhost: /flexlm/v7.1/sun4_u5/license.dat:
 myhost: license server UP (MASTER) v7.1
 Vendor daemon status (on myhost1):
demo: UP v7.1
 Feature usage info:
 Users of f1: (Total of 4 licenses available)
   "f1" v1.0, vendor: demo
   floating license
     daniel myhost2 19.16.18.26 (v1.0) (myhost1/27000 102), start Fri          5/3 7:29

where:

daniel
user
User name.
myhost2
user_host
Host where user is running.
19.16.18.26
display
Display where user is running.
v1.0
version
Version of feature.
myhost1
server_host
Host where license server is
running.
27000
port
Port on server_host where
license server is running.
102
handle
License handle.
start Fri 5/3
7:29
checkout_time
Time that this license was checked
out.

Note: lmstat -a is a potentially expensive command. With many active users, this can generate a lot of network activity, and therefore should not be used too often.

7.13 lmswitchr

The lmswitchr utility switches the report log file by closing the existing report log and starting a new report log with a new file name. It will also start a new report log file if one does not already exist.

Usage is:

lmswitchr [-c license_file_list] feature new_report_log

or with v5+ vendor daemon:

lmswitchr [-c license_file_list] vendor new_report_log

where:

-c license_file_list
Use the specified license file(s).
feature
Any feature in this license file.
vendor
Vendor daemon in this license file.
new_report_log
Path to new report log file.

Note: lmswitchr does not work with FLEXlm v3.0 vendor daemons. Ask your vendor for a later version of their vendor daemon.

7.14 lmver

The lmver utility reports the FLEXlm version of a library or binary file.

Usage is:

lmver filename

where filename is the name of an executable file built with FLEXlm.

For example if you have an application called "spell," type:

% lmver spell

Alternatively, on UNIX systems, you can use the following commands to get the FLEXlm version of a binary:

strings filename | grep Copy

7.15 License Administration Tools--lmtools for Windows

For the 32-bit Windows platforms, an lmtools program is provided.

With lmtools, you can start, stop and configure FLEXlm license servers, get system information, including hostids, get server status, and more.

lmtools v7+ has two modes in which to configure a license server:

7.15.1 Configuration Using License File

Operations are performed on a particular license file. In this mode, you cannot start the lmgrd process, but you can do everything else. In the first tab, you need to select a license file.

7.15.2 Configuration Using Services

Operations are performed on a Windows Service, which allows starting lmgrd processes. On NT, you configure a real NT Service. On Windows 95/98, it behaves similarly to an NT service. In the first tab, you need to select a service.

Use the Configure Services tab to define a license service. When configuring a service, a license file is selected (similar to Configuration using License File), but in addition, locations for lmgrd and the debug log file are specified, the service is given a unique name, and you can also indicate that the service should be started with system boot.

TOC INDEX

Appendix A
Hostids for FLEXlm-Supported Machines

FLEXlm uses different machine identifications for different machine architectures. For example, all Sun Microsystems machines have a unique hostid, whereas all DEC machines do not. For this reason, the ethernet address is used on some machine architectures as the hostid. An ethernet address is a 6-byte quantity, with each byte specified as two hexadecimal digits. Specify all twelve hex digits when using an ethernet address as a hostid. For example, if the ethernet address is "8:0:20:0:5:ac," you would specify "0800200005ac" as the hostid.

A.1 Hostid Formats

Numeric, 32-bit hostids are normally used in hexadecimal format. On some systems, including HP and SGI, the system command returns the number in decimal format. Since v3.0 of FLEXlm, a "#" before the hostid indicates to FLEXlm that this is a decimal number. For example, if the HP uname -i command returns "2005771344," FLEXlm will accept "#2005771344." Or it can be converted to hexadecimal. On UNIX systems, you can convert to hex with the following script:

% echo 2005771344 16o p | dc
778DA450

A.2 Expected FLEXlm Hostids

The program lmhostid will print the exact hostid that FLEXlm expects to use on any given machine. The following table lists alternate methods to obtain the required hostid for each machine architecture. FLEXlm also supports a group of special hostids and vendor-defined hostids.

Hardware Platform Hostid Type this command on the license server: Example
AIX
(RS/6000,
PPC)
32-bit
hostid
uname -m (returns
000276513100), then
remove last two digits,
and use remaining last
eight digits
02765131
DEC Alpha
ethernet
address
netstat -i
080020005532
HP
32-bit
hostid
uname -i and convert
to hex, or prepend with
#
778DA450 or
#2005771344
ethernet
address
lanscan (station
address without leading
"0x")
0000F0050185
Linux
ethernet
address
/sbin/ifconfig
eth0 and remove
colons from HWaddr
00:40:05:16:E5:25
00400516E525
SCO
Hostid
String
uname -x (Serial is
SCO00354), then prefix
with "ID_STRING="
ID_STRING=SCO00354
SGI
32-bit
hostid
/etc/sysinfo -s,
convert to hex, or prefix
#
69064C3C or
#1762020412
SUN
32-bit
hostid
hostid
170a3472
Windows
ethernet
address
lmutil lmhostid
00B0A9DF9A32
Disk serial
number
DIR C: (look for
"Volume Serial Number
is", and remove "-")
DISK_SERIAL_NUM=

3e2e17fd
Dongle--
parallel port
hardware
key
lmhostid -flexid
FLEXID=7-b28520b9
Pentium
III+ CPU,
V7.0d+
only. Use
BIOS Setup
to enable.
lmhostid -cpu

lmhostid -cpu96
(The 32-bit version is
the last nine characters
from the full id.)
9077-5D77-0002-57C8-

95D2-1D3D (96-bit)


95D2-1D3D (32-bit)

A.3 Special FLEXlm Hostids

FLEXlm contains a number of "special" hostid types which apply to all platforms. These hostid types can be used on either a SERVER line or a FEATURE line, wherever a hostid is required. These are:

ANY
Locks the software to any node (i.e.,
does not lock anything).
DEMO
Similar to ANY, but only for use with
uncounted FEATURE lines.
DISK_SERIAL_NUM=SN
Locks the software to a PC with C drive
serial number SN. (Windows only).
DISPLAY=display
Locks the software to display display.
FLEXID=SN
Locks the software to a PC with a
hardware key (dongle) of serial number
SN. (Windows only).
HOSTNAME=host
Locks the software to computer host
name host.
ID=n
Functionally equivalent to the "ANY"
hostid--it will run on any node. The
difference is that the license is unique
and can be used to identify the customer.
This hostid can be used to lock the
license server (on the SERVER line) or
the client (on the
FEATURE/INCREMENT line). The
number can have dashes included for
readability--the dashes are ignored.
Examples:
ID=12345678 is the same as
ID=1234-5678 is the same as
ID=1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
ID_STRING=string
Used on SCO systems for hostid.
INTERNET=

###.###.###.###
Locks the software to an Internet IP
address, or group of IP addresses.
Wildcards are allowed. For example,
198.156.*.* means any host with a
matching internet IP address. The main
use is to limit usage access by subnet,
implying geographic area. For this
purpose, it would be used on the
FEATURE/INCREMENT line, as a
hostid lock.
USER=user
Locks the software to user name user.

Examples
FEATURE f1 demo 1.0 1-jan-2005 uncounted HOSTID=HOSTNAME=globes \
SIGN=AB28E0011DA1

or

FEATURE f1 demo 1.0 1-jan-2005 uncounted HOSTID=USER=joe \
SIGN=EB78201163B0
TOC INDEX

Appendix B
Troubleshooting Guide

This appendix documents areas of FLEXlm that have given customers difficulty in the past. We hope it helps you debug any problems you might experience at your site.

B.1 General Debugging Hints

The following are tips for debugging:

B.2 FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS

Note: Available only with applications using FLEXlm v4.1 or higher for UNIX, and v5.0 or higher with Windows. Also, applications may choose not to provide this functionality.

FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS is an environment variable that will cause the application to produce diagnostic information when a checkout is denied. The format of the diagnostic information may change over time.

To set FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS, on UNIX:

(csh): % setenv FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS 1
(sh): $ FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS=1; export FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS

On Windows 3.1 and 95, add the following line to C:\autoexec.bat:

SET FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS=1

On NT, use the System Control Panel applet to change the global environment, adding FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS to 1.

On UNIX, the diagnostic output goes to stderr.

On Windows, if the application is v5.11 or higher, the output is a file in the current directory called flexpid.log, where pid is the application's process ID. If the application is v5.0, the output file is called flex_err.log.

B.2.1 Level 1 Content

If FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS is set to 1, then the standard FLEXlm error message will be presented, plus a complete list of license files that the application tried to use. For example:

% setenv FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS 1
FLEXlm checkout error: Cannot find license file (-1,73:2) No such file or directory
license file(s): /usr/myproduct/licenses/testing.dat license.dat

B.2.2 Level 2 Content

If FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS is set to 2, then, in addition to level 1 output, the checkout arguments are presented. For example:

% setenv FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS 2
FLEXlm checkout error: No such feature exists (-5,116:2) No such file or directory
license file(s): /usr/myproduct/licenses/testing.dat license.dat
lm_checkout("f1", 1.0, 1, 0x0, ..., 0x4000)

Note that the error message actually contains two separate problems, which both occurred during the checkout:

Following is a description of the arguments to lm_checkout()

lm_checkout(feature, version, num_lic, queue_flag, ..., dupgroup_mask)

where:

feature
The requested feature.
version
The requested version. The license file must
contain a version >= the requested version.
num_lic
Number of licenses requested. Usually 1.
queue_flag
If 0, no queueing

If 1, queue for license ("blocking" queue)

If 2, queue for licenses, but return to application
("non-blocking" queue)
dupgroup_mask
Indicates duplicate grouping, also called license
sharing. User, host, and display are as shown by
lmstat -a.

B.2.3 Level 3 Content (FLEXlm v6+ only)

If FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS is set to 3, then, in addition to level 1 and 2 output, if a checkout is successful, information is printed explaining how the license was granted:

% setenv FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS 3
% application
Checkout succeeded: f0/14263EAEA8E0
License file: ./servtest.lic
No server used
% application2
Checkout succeeded: f1/BC64A7B120AE
License file: @localhost
License Server: @localhost
% application3
Checkout succeeded: f1/BC64A7B120AE
License file: servtest.lic
License Server: @speedy

Note that the feature name and license key are printed, along with the license file location (or host name if @host were used) and host name of the server, where applicable.

B.3 FLEXlm Troubleshooting List

B.3.1 Problem Description Format

Each problem is presented in three parts:

Symptom:
A description of the problem.
Cause:
A discussion of what causes the problem described in
the "Symptom" section.
Solution:
Instructions on how to solve the problem.

You can scan through the list of problems to find any which appear to relate to your concerns. In order to solve your problem, you may have to use all or some of the solutions listed here.

B.3.2 Hostid Problems

Symptom:
When I run the license manager on my machine, it tells
me it is the wrong hostid.
Cause:
The vendor daemon checks the hostid listed on the
SERVER line in the license file; if it does not match the
hostid of the machine it is running on, this message will
be printed. Possible causes include: 1) you are trying to
run the license server on a different machine from the
machine the file was made for; 2) the hostid of the
machine you are running on changed (for example, the
dongle hostid was moved (Windows) or the CPU board
was replaced); 3) the hostid in the license file was
modified.
Solution:
Verify that the hostid of the machine on which the
vendor daemon (or node locked client program) is being
run matches the hostid specified in the license file (on
the SERVER line for the vendor or on the FEATURE
line for a node-locked client). You can run the
lmhostid program to see what FLEXlm thinks the
hostid is. You may not modify the hostid in the license
file. If the hostid of your server machine changes, you
will have to get a new license file from your software
vendor.

B.3.3 Connection Problems

Symptom:
The application program (or lmstat) can't connect to
the server to check out a license.
Cause:
The FLEXlm routines in the application are unable to
make a TCP connection to the server and port specified
in the license file. Possible reasons for this are: 1) the
wrong license file is being referenced by the application
program; 2) the server machine specified in the license
file is down; 3) the vendor daemon specified in the
license file is not running; 4) the host name in the
license file is not recognized by the system; 5) the
network between the client machine and the server
machine is down; 6) You are mixing FLEXlm v1.5 (or
earlier) and v2.1 (or later) vendor daemons in one
license file and have run lmgrd without the -b
command line option; 7) TCP is not running on your
machine.
Solution:
The lmdiag utility is designed primarily to debug this
problem, so first, try lmdiag. Verify that the application
is using the proper license file. Verify that specified
server machine is up and reachable by executing another
command that uses TCP, such as telnet, from the
client to the server. Verify that the vendor daemon is
running (you can use ps on the server to look for it).
Examine the license log file to see if any problems are
reported, particularly messages indicating that the
vendor daemon has quit. Run lmstat -a from the
server machine to verify that the vendor daemon is alive.
Run lmstat -a from the client machine to verify the
connection from client to vendor daemon across the
network. Try using telnet host port where host
and port are the same as on the SERVER line in your
license file.

B.3.4 Other Client Problems

Symptom:
When I run my application program (or vendor
daemon), I get the error bad code or inconsistent
encryption code.
Cause:
Possible causes for this are: 1) the license file was
modified (either the hostid on a SERVER line or
anything on the FEATURE line was changed); 2) the
vendor used the wrong version of his license creation
program to generate your license file (or there is a bug
in that process).
Solution:
You may not modify the license file (except for specific
fields, see Chapter 3, "The License File"). If you need to
change something in your license file, you must get a
new license file from your software vendor.

Symptom:
When the second user tries to check out a license, the
vendor daemon prints an error concerning Parameter
mismatch in the debug log file and refuses the license.
The application may give the error: Duplicate
selection mismatch for this feature.
Cause:
The most likely cause of this problem is that you are
simultaneously trying to run two different versions of
the application program, and the software vendor has not
specifically set up the new version for this kind of
compatibility. Check the debug log file for a comm
version mismatch warning message; this indicates that
someone is running an older client than the license
server daemon, lmgrd.
Solution:
Run only the new version of the application (or only the
old version).

B.3.5 Other Server Problems

Symptom:
When I run the vendor daemon on my VMS system, I get
the error message socket bind: permission
denied (13).
Cause:
The daemon needs to bind the socket address in order to
be able to listen for connections from clients. This is
done in the system name table, so it requires the
SYSNAM privilege.
Solution:
Run the daemon in a process with the SYSNAM
privilege set.

Symptom:
When I start up lmgrd, it says execl failed on my
vendor daemon.
Cause:
lmgrd uses execl to start each vendor daemon running.
If there is a problem starting the vendor daemon, this
message is output to the log file. This error is typically
caused by one of the following: 1) there is no executable
at the location referred to by the license file (and printed
out in the log file); 2) the executable does not have the
proper permissions to be run (the file does not have the
"x" bit set or one of the directories in the path is not
readable); 3) there was an error building the executable,
and it can not be run; 4) the executable is for a different
machine architecture.
Solution:
Verify that the path to the vendor daemon is absolute
(i.e., starts with a slash character and that it points to the
executable program itself, not the containing directory
(for FLEXlm v1.5). Ensure that the file exists by doing
an ls -l of the vendor daemon file name(s) specified
in the log file. Make sure you do this as the same user
that started lmgrd. Verify that the file is executable.
Note that if you are running as root and using an NFS-
mounted file system, the relevant protection bits are the
"other" bits (not the "user" bits), even if the file is
owned by root. Do a whatis on the file (if your system
has that program). whatis should tell you the file is an
executable for the machine you are trying to run it on.
Run the vendor daemon directly from the command line.
If the vendor daemon is properly linked, it will tell you
that it must be run from lmgrd; if it crashes or fails to
execute, then it is not properly linked.

Symptom:
The license server keeps reporting "lost lock" errors in
the log file and exiting.
Cause:
The lock file (normally placed in /usr/tmp on UNIX,
C:\flexlm on Windows NT, SYS:\SYSTEM\FLEXLM
on Netware) is being removed by someone else. There
could be another daemon running, or the license
administrator (or a script he set up) could have deleted
the file.
Solution:
Check to see if there is more than one copy of the
daemon running. On UNIX use a command like

ps -aux | grep vendor to search for it. Check for
more than one lmgrd running as well, since it will
restart your vendor daemon when it is killed. If more
than one lmgrd is running, kill them all (using the kill
command, not kill -9, on UNIX or lmtools on
Windows NT), then kill any remaining vendor daemons
(on UNIX, try a simple kill, if that fails then try kill
-9 the lmgrd and all vendor daemons) and start one
fresh copy of lmgrd. On UNIX, check to see if there is
a shell script running that cleans out /tmp (or
/usr/tmp). If so, try modifying it so that it does not
delete zero-length files.

TOC INDEX

Appendix C
FLEXlm Environment Variables

Environment variables should never be required to use FLEXlm-licensed applications. Environment variables are normally used for debugging or for changing license default location.

C.1 How to Set Environment Variables

FLEXlm environment variables are set in two different ways:

C.1.1 Registry

On Windows, the FLEXlm registry location is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREFLEXlm License Manager

On UNIX, the equivalent information is stored in $HOME/.flexlmrc. In this file, the syntax is variable=value.

C.1.2 Precedence

If the variable is LM_LICENSE_FILE or VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE, then both the environment and the registry are used, with the environment used first, and the registry appended to the path.

If it's a different variable, then if the environment set, only that is used, otherwise the registry is used. That is, the registry is only used if the environment is not set.

C.2 Environment Variables

Variable
Use (FLEXlm version introduced)
FLEXLM_BATCH
Windows only: prevents interactive pop-
ups from appearing. Set to 1 if a batch
application. (Version 7+ clients)
FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS
Used for debugging where applications
don't print FLEXlm error message text.
Set to 1, 2, or 3, depending on the
amount of diagnostic information
desired. See Section B.2,
"FLEXLM_DIAGNOSTICS." (Version
5+ clients)
LM_LICENSE_FILE or
VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE
Reset path to license file. Can be a
license file list, separated by ": " on
UNIX and " ; " on Windows. If
VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE used, VENDOR
is the vendor daemon name used by this
application. For example, GLOBEtrotter
Software products use
GSI_LICENSE_FILE. Can be a file
name, or port@host. See also Section
3.1.2, "Setting the Path with an
Environment Variable."
(VENDOR_LICENSE_FILE requires v6+
clients.)
LM_PROJECT
LM_PROJECT's value is logged in the
report log file and later reported on by
SAMreport. Limited to 30 characters.
(Version 5+ client required.)
This can also be used to RESERVE,
INCLUDE, etc. licenses with PROJECT.
For example:
RESERVE 1 f1 PROJECT airplane
v5+ clients and v7+ vendor daemon are
required for this feature.
TOC INDEX

Appendix D
Frequently Asked Questions

D.1 License File Questions

D.1.1 I've received FLEXlm license files from two different companies. Do I have to combine them?

You don't have to combine license files. Each license file that has any counted lines (the license count field is > 0) requires a server. It's perfectly OK to have any number of separate license files, with different lmgrd server processes supporting each file. Moreover, since lmgrd is a lightweight process, for sites without system administrators, this is often the simplest (and therefore recommended) way to proceed. With v6+ lmgrd/lmdown/lmreread, you can restart/stop/reread a single vendor daemon (of any FLEXlm version). This makes combining licenses more attractive than previously. Also, if the application is v6+, using dir/*.lic for license file management behaves like combining licenses without physically combining them.

D.1.2 When is it recommended to combine license files?

Many system administrators, especially for larger sites, prefer to combine license files to ease administration of FLEXlm licenses. It's purely a matter of preference.

D.1.3 Does FLEXlm handle dates in the year 2000 and beyond?

Yes. The FLEXlm date format uses a four-digit year. Dates in the 20th century (19xx) can be abbreviated to the last two digits of the year (xx), and use of this feature is quite widespread. Dates in the year 2000 and beyond must specify all four year digits.

D.2 FLEXlm Versions

D.2.1 I have products from several companies at various FLEXlm version levels. Do I have to worry about how these versions work together?

If you're not combining license files from different vendors, the simplest thing to do is make sure you use the tools that are shipped by each vendor.

lmgrd will always correctly support older versions of vendor daemons and applications, so it's always safe to use the latest version of lmgrd and the lmutil/lmtools utilities. If you've combined license files from two vendors, you must use the latest version of lmgrd.

If you've received two versions of a product from the same vendor, you must use the latest vendor daemon they send you. An older vendor daemon with a newer client will cause communication errors.

Please ignore letters appended to FLEXlm versions, for example, the "d" in v2.4d. The appended letter indicates a patch, and does NOT indicate any compatibility differences. In particular, some elements of FLEXlm didn't require certain patches, so a v2.4 lmgrd will work successfully with a v2.4b vendor daemon. See also Section G.1, "Version Compatibility and Components."

D.2.2 I've received a new copy of a product from a vendor, and it uses a new version of FLEXlm. Is my old license file still valid?

Yes. Older FLEXlm license files are always valid with newer versions of FLEXlm.

D.2.3 I've received a new license file, and the format is different from the old one I had from the same vendor? Why? Are they compatible?

As of v3.0, FLEXlm has an optional new format for license files. FLEXlm products always understand older versions; therefore, the pre-v3.0 files are understood by every FLEXlm version. However, your old applications (pre-FLEXlm v3.0) will not be able to use the new license file. See also Section 3.2, "License File Format."

D.3 Using FLEXlm

D.3.1 Does FLEXlm work across the Internet?

Yes. A server on the Internet will serve licenses to anyone else on the Internet. This can be limited with the INTERNET= attribute on the FEATURE line, which limits access to a range of Internet addresses. You can also use the INCLUDE and EXCLUDE options in the daemon option file to allow (or deny) access to clients running on a range of Internet addresses.

D.3.2 Does FLEXlm work with Internet firewalls?

Many firewalls require that port numbers be specified to the firewall. FLEXlm v5 lmgrd supports this.

D.3.3 If my client dies, does the server free the license?

Yes, unless the client's whole system crashes, or becomes disconnected from the network. Assuming communications is TCP, the license is automatically freed immediately. If communications are UDP, then the license is freed after the UDP timeout, which is set by each vendor, but defaults to 45 minutes. UDP communications is normally only set by the end user, so TCP should be assumed. If the whole system crashes, then the license is not freed, and you should use lmremove to free the license.

D.3.4 What happens when the license server dies?

FLEXlm applications send periodic heartbeats to the server to discover if it has died. What happens when the server dies is then up to the application. Some will simply continue periodically attempting to re-checkout the license when the server comes back up. Some will attempt to re-checkout a license a few times, and then, presumably with some warning, exit. Some GUI applications will present pop-ups to the user periodically letting them know the server is down and needs to be restarted.

D.3.5 How do you tell if a port is already in use?

99.44% of the time, if it's in use, it's because lmgrd is already running on the port--or was recently killed, and the port isn't freed yet. Assuming this is not the case, then use telnet host port-- if it says "Can't connect," it's a free port.

D.3.6 Does FLEXlm require root permissions?

No. There is no part of FLEXlm, lmgrd, vendor daemon, or application, that requires root permissions. In fact, it is strongly recommended that you do not run the license server (lmgrd) as "root," since root processes can introduce security risks. If lmgrd must be started from the root user (for example, in a system boot script), we recommend that you use the su command to run lmgrd as a non-privileged user:

su username -c "lmgrd_path -c license_file_path -l debug_log_path"

where username is a non-privileged user, and the paths are the correct paths to lmgrd, the license file, and the debug log file. You will have to ensure that the vendor daemons listed in the license file have execute permissions for username. The paths to all the vendor daemons in the license file are listed on each DAEMON line.

D.3.7 Is it OK to run lmgrd as "root" (UNIX only)?

It is not prudent to run any command, particularly a daemon, as root on UNIX, as it may pose a security risk to the operating system. Therefore, we recommend that lmgrd be run as a non-privileged user (not "root"). If you are starting lmgrd from a boot script, we recommend that you use:

su username -c "umask 022; lmgrd..."

to run lmgrd as a non-privileged user.

D.3.8 Does FLEXlm licensing impose a heavy load on the network?

No, but partly this depends on the application, and end user's use. A typical checkout request requires five messages and responses between client and server, and each message is <150 bytes.

When a server is not receiving requests, it requires virtually no CPU time.

When an application, or lmstat, requests the list of current users, this can significantly increase the amount of networking FLEXlm uses, depending on the number of current users.

Also, prior to FLEXlm v5, use of port@host can increase network load, since the license file is downloaded from the server to the client. port@host should be, if possible, limited to small license files (say, <50 features). In v5, port@host actually improves performance.

D.3.9 Does FLEXlm work with NFS?

Yes. FLEXlm has no direct interaction with NFS. FLEXlm uses an NFS-mounted file like any other application.

D.3.10 Does FLEXlm work with ATM, ISDN, Token-Ring, etc.

In general, these have no impact on FLEXlm. FLEXlm requires TCP/IP. So long as TCP/IP works, FLEXlm will work.

D.3.11 Does FLEXlm work with subnets, fully qualified names, multiple domains, etc.?

Yes, although this behavior was improved in v3.0, and v6.0.

When a license server and a client are located in different domains, fully qualified host names have to be used. A "fully qualified host name" is of the form node.domain, where node is the local host name (usually returned by the hostname command or uname -n) and domain is the Internet domain name, e.g., "globes.com."

To ensure success with FLEXlm across domains, do the following:

  1. Make the sure the fully qualified host name is the name on the SERVER line of the license file.
  2. Make sure ALL client nodes, as well as the server node, are able to telnet to that fully qualified host name. For example, if the host is locally called "speedy," and the domain name is "corp.com," local systems will be able to logon to "speedy" via telnet speedy. But very often, telnet speedy.corp.com will fail locally. Note that this telnet command will always succeed on hosts in other domains (assuming everything is configured correctly), since the network will resolve "speedy.corp.com" automatically.
  3. Finally, there must be an alias for "speedy" so it's also known locally as "speedy.corp.com." This alias is added to the /etc/hosts file, or if NIS/Yellow Pages are being used, then it will have to be added to the NIS database. This requirement goes away in version 3.0 of FLEXlm.

If all components (application, lmgrd and vendor daemon) are v6.0 or higher, no aliases are required; the only requirement is that the fully qualified domain name, or IP address, is used as a host name on the SERVER, or as a host name in the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable (port@host or @host).

D.3.12 Does FLEXlm work with NIS and DNS?

Yes. However, some sites have broken NIS or DNS, which will cause FLEXlm to fail. In v5 of FLEXlm, NIS and DNS can be avoided to solve this problem. In particular, sometimes DNS is configured for a server that's not current available (e.g., a dial-up connection from a PC). Again, if DNS is configured, but the server is not available, FLEXlm will fail.

On PCs, if a checkout seems to take three minutes and then fails, this is usually because the system is configured for a dial-up DNS server which is not currently available. The solution here is to turn off DNS.

Finally, host names must NOT have periods in the name. These are not legal host names, although PCs will allow you to enter them, and they will not work with DNS.

D.3.13 We're using FLEXlm over a wide-area network. What can we do to improve performance?

FLEXlm network traffic should be minimized. With the most common uses of FLEXlm, traffic is negligible. In particular, checkout, checkin, and heartbeats use very little networking traffic. There are two items, however, which can send considerably more data and should be avoided or used sparingly:

D.4 Windows Questions

D.4.1 What PC Platforms are supported?

FLEXlm v7.1 supports Windows 95/98, 2000, and NT.

Note: Networking is required on all 32-bit versions.

D.4.2 Will the Server run on Windows 95?

Yes.

TOC INDEX

Appendix E
FLEXlm Error Codes

E.1 Error Message Format

FLEXlm error messages presented by applications have the following components:

Error messages were improved in v6. FLEXlm Error Explanation, and supporting information are only available in applications using v6.0+.

These error messages may occur in two formats available with FLEXlm or may appear in a format customized by the application.

E.1.1 Format 1 (short):

FLEXlm error text (-lm_errno, minor_num[:sys_errno]) [sys_error_text]

The system error information may be missing.

Example:

Can't connect to license server (-15,12:61) Connection refused

E.1.2 Format 2 (long--version 6+):

FLEXlm error text
 FLEXlm error explanation
[Optional Supporting information]
FLEXlm error: -lm_errno, minor_num. [System Error: sys_errno] ["system_error_text"]

Example:

Cannot connect to license server
 The server (lmgrd) has not been started yet, or
 the wrong port@host or license file is being used, or the
 port or hostname in the license file has been changed.
Feature: f1
Server name: localhost
License path: @localhost:license.dat:./*.lic
FLEXlm error: -15,12. System Error: 61 "Connection refused"

E.2 Error Code Descriptions

Errors marked with an " * " indicates errors which should not appear in shipping software. These are errors intended to help the programmer incorporate FLEXlm in their product, and should be fixed before shipping.

Errors marked with " + " indicate errors due to an operating system failure.

Error
Description
-1
Cannot find license file.
-2
Invalid license file syntax.
-3
No server for this feature.
-4
Licensed number of users already reached.
-5
No such feature exists.
-6
No port number in license file and FLEXlm service does
not exist. (pre-v6 only)
-7
No socket connection to license manager service.
-8
Invalid (inconsistent) license key or signature.
The license key/signature and data for the feature do not
match. This usually happens when a license file has
been altered.
-9
Invalid host.
The hostid of this system does not match the hostid
specified in the license file.
-10
Feature has expired.
-11
Invalid date format in license file.
-12
Invalid returned data from license server.
-13
No SERVER lines in license file.
-14
Cannot find SERVER host name in network database.
The lookup for the host name on the SERVER line in the
license file failed. This often happens when NIS or DNS
or the hosts file is incorrect. Workaround: Use IP
address (e.g., 123.456.789.123) instead of host name.
-15
Cannot connect to license server.
The server (lmgrd) has not been started yet, or the
wrong port@host or license file is being used, or the
port or host name in the license file has been changed.
-16
Cannot read data from license server.
-17
Cannot write data to license server.
-18
License server does not support this feature.
-19
Error in select system call.
-20
[Obsolete]
-21
License file does not support this version.
-22
Feature checkin failure detected at license server.
-23
License server temporarily busy (new server
connecting).
-24
Users are queued for this feature.
-25
License server does not support this version of this
feature.
-26
Request for more licenses than this feature supports.
-27
[Obsolete]
-28
[Obsolete]
-29
Cannot find ethernet device.
-30
Cannot read license file.
-31
Feature start date is in the future.
-32
No such attribute.
-33
Bad encryption handshake with daemon.
-34
Clock difference too large between client and server.
-35
In the queue for this feature.
-36
Feature database corrupted in daemon.
-37
Duplicate selection mismatch for this feature.
-38
User/host on EXCLUDE list for feature.
-39
User/host not on INCLUDE list for feature.
-40
Cannot locate dynamic memory.
-41
Feature was never checked out.
-42
Invalid parameter.
-43
* No FLEXlm key data supplied in initializing call.
-44
* Invalid FLEXlm key data supplied.
-45
* FLEXlm function not available in this version.
-46
[Obsolete]
-47
Clock setting check not available in daemon.
-48
* FLEXlm platform not enabled.
-49
* Date invalid for binary format.
-50
* FLEXlm key data has expired.
-51
* FLEXlm not initialized.
-52
FLEXlm vendor daemon did not respond within timeout
interval.
-53
Checkout request rejected by vendor-defined checkout
filter.
-54
No FEATURESET line in license file.
-55
Incorrect FEATURESET line in license file.
-56
Cannot compute FEATURESET data from license file.
-57
+ socket() call failed.
-58
[Obsolete]
-59
Message checksum failure.
-60
Server message checksum failure.
-61
Cannot read license file data from server.
-62
Network software (TCP/IP) not available.
-63
You are not a license administrator.
-64
lmremove request before the minimum lmremove
interval.
-65
* Unknown VENDORCODE struct type passed to
lm_init().
-66
* FLEXlm include file/library version mismatch.
-67
[Obsolete]
-68
[Obsolete]
-69
[Obsolete]
-70
[Obsolete]
-71
Invalid TZ environment variable.
-72
* Old VENDORCODE (three-word) struct type passed
to lm_init().
-73
Local checkout filter rejected request.
-74
Attempt to read beyond end of license file path.
-75
+ SYS$SETIMR call failed (VMS).
-76
Internal FLEXlm error - please report to GLOBEtrotter
Software.
-77
Bad version number - must be floating-point number
with no letters.
-78
* FLEXlm internal error -78.
-79
* FLEXlm internal error -79.
-80
* FLEXlm internal error -80.
-81
* FLEXlm internal error -81.
-82
Invalid PACKAGE line in license file.
-83
FLEXlm version of client newer than server.
-84
USER_BASED license has no specified users - see
server log.
-85
License server doesn't support this request.
-86
License object already in use (Java only).
-87
Checkout exceeds MAX specified in options file.
-88
System clock has been set back.
-89
This platform not authorized by license.
-90
Future license file format or misspelling in license file.
The file was issued for a later version of FLEXlm than
this program understands.
-91
ENCRYPTION_SEEDS are non-unique.
-92
Feature removed during lmreread, or wrong SERVER
line hostid.
-93
This feature is available in a different license pool.
This is a warning condition. The server has pooled one
or more INCREMENT lines into a single pool, and the
request was made on an INCREMENT line that has
been pooled.
-94
Attempt to generate license with incompatible attributes.
-95
Network connect to this_host failed.
The license file indicates this_host, and the server is
not running on this host. If it's running on a different
host, this_host should be changed to the correct host.
-96
Server node is down or not responding.
See the system administrator about starting the server, or
make sure that you're referring to the right host (see
LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable).
-97
The desired vendor daemon is down.
1) Check the lmgrd log file, or 2) Try lmreread.
-98
This FEATURE line can't be converted to decimal
format.
-99
The decimal format license is typed incorrectly.
-100
Cannot remove a linger license.
-101
All licenses are reserved for others.
The system administrator has reserved all the licenses
for others. Reservations are made in the options file. The
server must be restarted for options file changes to take
effect.
-102
[Unused]
-103
[Unused]
-104
[Unused]
-105
[Unused]
-106
License server out of network connections.
The vendor daemon can't handle any more users. See the
debug log for further information.
-107
[Unused]
-108
[Unused]
-109
[Unused]
-110
Dongle not attached, or can't read dongle.
Either the hardware dongle is unattached, or the
necessary software driver for this dongle type is not
installed.
-112
Missing dongle driver.
In order to read the dongle hostid, the correct driver
must be installed. These drivers are available at
http://www.globetrotter.com or from your software
vendor.
-113
FLEXlock checkouts attempted.
Only one checkout is allowed with FLEXlock-enabled
apps.
-114
SIGN= attribute required.
This is probably because the license is older than the
application. You need to obtain a SIGN= version of this
license from your vendor.
-115
Error in Public Key package.

TOC INDEX

Appendix F
The Debug Log File

FLEXlm daemons generate debug log files in the following format:

hh:mm:ss (daemon) message

where:

hh:mm:ss
Time that the message was logged.
daemon
Either lmgrd or the vendor daemon name. In the case
where a single copy of the daemon cannot handle all of
the requested licenses, an optional "_" followed by a
number indicates that this message comes from a forked
daemon.
message
The text of the message.

The debug log files can be used to:

F.1 Informational Messages

Connected to host

This daemon is connected to its peer on host.

CONNECTED, master is host

The license daemons log this message when a quorum is up and everyone has selected a master.

DENIED: num_lic feature to user

user was denied access to num_lic licenses of feature.

EXITING DUE TO SIGNAL nnn
EXITING with code nnn

All daemons list the reason that the daemon has exited.

EXPIRED: feature

feature has passed its expiration date.

IN: "feature" user (num_lic licenses)

user has checked in num_lic licenses of feature.

Lost connection to host

A daemon can no longer communicate with its peer on node host, which can cause the clients to have to reconnect, or cause the number of daemons to go below the minimum number, in which case clients may start exiting. If the license daemons lose the connection to the master, they will kill all the vendor daemons; vendor daemons will shut themselves down.

Lost quorum

The daemon lost quorum, so will process only connection requests from other daemons.

MULTIPLE vendor servers running. Please kill, and restart license daemon.

The license daemon has detected that multiple licenses for vendor daemon vendor are running. The user should kill all vendor processes and restart the license daemon.

OUT: "feature" user (num_lic licenses)

user has checked out num_lic licenses of feature.

RESERVE feature for USER user
RESERVE feature for HOST host

A license of feature is reserved for either user or host.

REStarted vendor (internet port nnn)

Vendor daemon vendor was restarted at Internet port nnn.

Retrying socket bind (address in use)

The license servers try to bind their sockets for approximately six minutes if they detect "address in use" errors.

Selected (EXISTING) master host.

This license daemon has selected an existing master host as the master.

SERVER shutdown requested.

A daemon was requested to shut down via a user-generated kill command.

Server started on host for: "feature_list"

A (possibly new) server was started for the features listed.

Shutting down vendor

The license manager daemon is shutting down the vendor daemon vendor.

SIGCHLD received. Killing child servers.

A vendor daemon logs this message when a shutdown was requested by the license daemon.

Started vendor

The license manager daemon logs this message whenever it starts a new vendor daemon.

Trying to connect to host

The daemon is attempting a connection to host.

F.2 Configuration Problem Messages

host: Not a valid server host, exiting

This daemon was run on an invalid host name.

host: Wrong hostid, exiting

The hostid is wrong for host.

BAD CODE for feature

The specified feature name has a bad license key or signature. It was probably typed in wrong, or modified by the end user.

CANNOT OPEN options file file

The options file specified in the license file could not be opened.

Couldn't find a master

The daemons could not agree on a master.

License daemon: lost all connections

This message is logged when all the connections to a server are lost, which often indicates a network problem.

Lost lock, exiting
Error closing lock file
Unable to re-open lock file

The vendor daemon has a problem with its lock file, usually because of an attempt to run more than one copy of the daemon on a single node. Locate the other daemon that is running via a ps command, and kill it with kill -9.

No DAEMON line for vendor

The license file does not contain a DAEMON or VENDOR line for vendor.

No DAEMON lines, exiting

The license daemon logs this message if there are no DAEMON or VENDOR lines in the license file. Because there are no vendor daemons to start, there is nothing for the license daemon to do.

No features to serve!

A vendor daemon found no features to serve. This could be caused by a corrupted or incorrectly entered license file.

UNSUPPORTED FEATURE request: feature by user

The user has requested a feature that this vendor daemon does not support. This can happen for a number of reasons: the license file is bad, the feature has expired, or the daemon is accessing the wrong license file.

Unknown host: host

The host name specified on a SERVER line in the license file does not exist in the network database (probably /etc/hosts).

F.3 Daemon Software Error Messages

accept: message

An error was detected in the "accept" system call.

Can't allocate server table space

A malloc error. Check swap space.

Connection to host TIMED OUT

The daemon could not connect to host.

Illegal connection request to vendor

A connection request was made to vendor, but this vendor daemon is not vendor.

read: error message

An error in a "read" system call was detected.

select: message

An error in a "select" system call was detected. This is usually a sign of a system networking failure.

Server exiting

The server is exiting. This is normally due to an error.
TOC INDEX

Appendix G
FLEXlm Versions

G.1 Version Compatibility and Components

In general, always use the latest lmgrd and lmutil/lmtools, which are available from http://www.globetrotter.com, and you'll automatically enjoy many of the enhancements available in the most recent versions. However, some enhancements require upgraded vendor daemons, and yet others require upgraded client applications. Given the following components:

the rules about compatibility can be summarized as follows:

Version of lmutil must be >=
Version of lmgrd, which must be >=
Version of vendor daemon, which must be >=
Version of client application, which must be >=
Version of license file format

Except for the license file, you can use lmver to discover the version of all these components. For the vendor daemon, lmgrd, and lmutil, you can also use the -v argument to print the version.

G.2 How to Tell the License File Version

The following rules apply to individual FEATURE, INCREMENT or UPGRADE lines. It's possible to have a mix of versions in a single file. Only the features that a particular application checks out determine the version of the license for that feature.

Version 2
Blank quotes or a quoted string at the end of the
FEATURE line.
>= Version 3
INCREMENT or UPGRADE line.
>= Version 4
OVERDRAFT, DUP_GROUP, INTERNET, or
PACKAGE appear.
>= Version 5
SUPERSEDE, ISSUED, USER_BASED,
HOST_BASED, or SN appear.
>= Version 6
START appears.
>= Version 7.1
SIGN= attribute appears.

v1.0--1988

First FLEXlm Release, containing all the basic FLEXlm features

v1.5--February 1990

First widely used version including DEMO

v2.1--March 1991
v2.21--November 1991
v2.26--March 1992 (Used only by Sun)
v2.4--December 1992
v2.61--March 1993 (Used only by Sun)
v3.0--May 1994
v4.0--December 1994
v4.1--May 1995
v4.1--Patch Release 6, October 1995
v5.0--March 1996
v5.11--February 1997
v5.12--April 1997
v6.0--September 1997
v6.1--June 1998
v7.0--August 1999
v7.1--August 2000
FLEXlm End Users Guide
August 2000
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