Networl Liocense Server questions

Being fairly new to the Network License Server, I have a few
questions....

1) The Network License Guide states that the maximum borrowing period
for licenses is 168 hours. Yet, my license file (as supplied by
Autodesk) has BORROW=720 in the file. Based on what I've seen, it is
indeed allowing 30 day borrows. If this correct and the guide out of
date? Or will the borrowed license only work for 7 days despite the
higher setting?

2) Can I have separate license groups for the same product on the same
license server? I.e 10 total licenses in 2 5 license groups, each group
used by a different group of people. From my reading, it looks like this
can't happen (based on the SUPERSEDE parameter) but thought I'd ask just
to be certain. I'm assuming to do this I'd need a distributed license
server setup and have separate deployments for each license group I want
to use.

3) I currently have deployments installed in a single license server
model. If I late move to a distributed server model, can I reconfigure
the software to pull from a different server or assign multiple servers
different orders for pulling a license? Or do I need to uninstall and
reinstall based on the different deployment?

4) Are all of the options specified in the FLEXlm documentation
available? I'm specifically interested in RESERVE, MAX.

5) What's the purpose of BORROW_LOWWATER?

6) Can the LM tools and utilities be run remotely? If so, how?

7) Any other hidden/undocumented features that might be useful or
documentation errors or omissions?


Thanx much!

--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

1) I believe 30 days is the maximum borrow. I have not read the 168 hour
thing before.

2)Check out the information with FlexLM documentation on creating an OPTIONS
file...I believe this can do what you're asking.

3)Sorry, this one I don't know. We use single, as well...I believe with
distributed or redundant, you would, at the very least, have to get a new
license file with the additional server MAC address and name information.

4)As far as I know, though I have only tried TIMEOUT and logging with Sam
Report Lite

5)Don't know...FlexLM Documentation?

6)You can run them remotely just by making the folder on the server into a
shared drive. Then, access that shared drive and run LMTools.exe or
LMUtil.exe

7)Sorry, don't know of any myself.

 

1) I have tested and confirmed the 30 day limit.

2) ?

3) You can reconfigure the deployment or create a new one to point to
different servers. I have a deployment that runs a redundant model for our
main office and a distributed model for other locations. For already
installed machines you will need to push an updated license file or set the
ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE system variable to point to the servers.

4)Not all the features in FlexLM are enabled. Someone else maybe able to
list them.

5) ?

6) Here's how I do it. Install the LMTOOLS locally. Map the license server
local hard drive as a share. On your local machine create a service in
LMTOOLS that points to the lmgrd.exe, license file, and debug log on the
license server. Now you can use the local LMTOOLS to control the service.
I also believe you can use the command line tools to call function remotely.
Never tried that. More of a GUI type.

7) I have had issues installing the ADLM to our servers using the default
install path. It seems to have issues creating a auto start windows service
when the path to the exe is too long. I just install to c:\ADLM to avoid
issues.

John

 

Check the abundant network documentation and various white papers at
www.autodesk.com, as well as www.macrovision.com.

Think of a "low water mark". If you have people borrowing licenses and
taking them away for a week, you may want to ensure that at least some
licenses always remain available on the server. Set this to the number of
licenses that can never be borrowed. The default is zero.

--Cy--

 

Check the abundant network documentation and various white papers at

Thanx. Got what I need from the Adesk site. I never think to look that
because what I'm usually looking for is never there. FLEXlm is the
exception this time.

Ahhh....I just noticed something. "Borrow". For some reason I was
thinking "Check out" which is why I asked what the purpose would be of
reserving licenses to not being able to used ever.


--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

Page 12 of the Network Licensing Guide..at least the one that ships with
Acad Mechanical.

I've found how to do it via options file. I was thinking it had to be
some with 2 separate license files.

I'll give that a whirl. Thanx Jenna!

--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

3) You can reconfigure the deployment or create a new one to point to

Just what I was looking for. Thanx John.

Looks like all of them except 3 or 4 of which I found a list on Adesk's
web site. Be nice in they'd do a little more detailed documentation. I
saw them in the FlexM documentation but didn't want to play with them
trial and error wondering if they weren't supported or just my syntax
was off.

How is this type of setup different than what Jenna does (just shares
the remote directory and accesses the remote tools). Is there an
advantage to installing the tools locally and pointing them to the
remote machine? (assuming I understood what you were trying to tell me
in the first place - sometimes I'm a little slow)

What server OS? I think I used the default without problems. Have to
check with out IT dept to see what OS it's running on. It's either NT4.0
or Win2000. I don't believe we run any other server's than those OS's.


--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

I haven't had any issues with the default installation path on the server,
using Windows 2000 Server, as well as Windows Server 2003.

 

Glad to help!
p.s. I'm on vanilla AutoCAD, but also must admit that I may not have read
all the documentation carefully enough to notice the 30 day/168 hour
contradication

 

I do it this way so I can run a newer version of LMTools without affecting
the servers and I also use LMTools to query license servers in our remote
offices.

NT 4 and windows 2000 server

--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

How is this type of setup different than what Jenna does (just shares

I've set it up this way but it's not working properly. It'll read the
license files and such just fine. It'll even shut down the license
server ok but it won't bring it back up.

If I go to Control Panel->Administrator Tools->Services, then connect to
the remote server's services, and try to restart the service, it tells
me Access is denied so I'm assuming it's a permissions issue that IT
needs to resolve for me. If there's anything else you can think of that
might be causing this, I'd certainly appreciate hearing it.

Thanx for the help!

--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

You can not use LMTools to start a license server on a remote system because
nothing is listing once the server was stopped. Restart will require a
console visit (physically or virtual) 0r a reboot.

 

You can not use LMTools to start a license server on a remote system because

But I should be able to go to Admin Tools-> Services, connect to the
remote system's services and restart the service I believe shouldn't I?

--
Darren J. Young
CAD/CAM Systems Developer

Cold Spring Granite Company
202 South Third Avenue
Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320

Email:
Phone: (320) 685-5045
Fax: (320) 685-5052

 

No, we recommend that LMTools be used to manually start the license manager
services. You can remote display a session from the license server using
terminal services or similar utility and use the remote session to run
LMTools on the server and start the services.