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Managing Ansys Lumerical licenses with an existing FlexNet license manager

This article describes how to manage your Lumerical licenses using an existing FlexNet license manager, rather than the Ansys license manager. This may be useful when you have multiple products managed by the FlexNet licensing system. Rather than running multiple instances of the license manager for each vendor, a single license manager can be used for all of the licenses. The typical license manager configurations for managing different licenses or vendor daemons are shown.

1. Separate server for each FlexNet license manager 

  • This is the recommended setup. 
  • Running each license manager on a separate computer is the trivial configuration.  

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Starting the license managers

Start/Run each FlexNet license manager for each vendor daemon on each machine.

2. Multiple license managers on one machine

  • This is a popular configuration. Running all of the license managers on a single server is convenient for system administration. It is also helpful for end-users because they only need to remember the name of a single computer for all of their licensing needs.
  • This setup uses LMGRD, with a certificate based license, i.e. Floating mac locked license model, that uses a license file.
  • A separate instance of FlexLM will be running for each vendor daemon and each must use a different communication (TCP) port. License files for each vendor are stored in different locations.
  • By default, Ansys license manager uses TCP port 1055 for the license manager and TCP port 1056 can be assigned as the ansyslmd daemon listening port. The license files should be modified accordingly for each FlexNet license manager. Ensure that each LM is using different ports. 
  • Leaving the TCP port blank, lets FlexLM automatically assign a random TCP port.

Example: 

License file 1 LUMERICL Daemon: 

SERVER this_host 1234567890AB 27011 
VENDOR LUMERICL port=42128

License file 2 ANSYSLMD Daemon: 

SERVER serverhostname 1234567890AB 1055
VENDOR ansyslmd port=1056

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Start the license manager for each vendor as per the guidelines provided by the vendor. 

3. One machine, one license manager and multiple license files

  • It is possible to configure a single FlexLM to manage licenses from multiple vendors using multiple license files.
  • This setup also uses LMGRD, with a certificate based license, i.e. Floating mac locked license model, that uses a license file similar to the 2nd setup. 
  • All license files are stored in the same location and lmgrd is run specifying the folder where the license files are stored, instead of a single license file.
  • Ensure that the SERVER port on the license files are the same. i.e. TCP 1055.
  • Specify a different TCP port for each vendor's license file. Leaving the TCP port blank, lets FlexNet automatically allocate a random TCP port.
  • This setup requires FlexNet license manager version 11.16.2 or higher and the latest version of ANSYSLMD daemon.

Example: 

License file 1 LUMERICL Daemon: 

SERVER this_host 1234567890AB 1055
VENDOR LUMERICL port=42128

License file 2 ANSYSLMD Daemon: 

SERVER serverhostname 1234567890AB 1055
VENDOR ansyslmd port=1056

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Starting the license manager

lmgrd -c /common_license_directory/ -log /path_to_logs/common_lmgrd.log

4. One machine, one license manager and one license file

In addition to the configuration described above. it is also possible to merge all license files into one (1) single license file on the one license server.  

Requisites

To combine all license files into (1), the license files must share some common characteristics:

  • The SERVER lines must be the same in all the license files. This is the first line in the license file, and this includes the HOSTID, and the MAC Address.
  • In order for the license files to be combined, they must have been originally created for the same HOSTID and corresponding MAC address. 
  • License files using the triad redundant configuration can only be combined with other license files that are also triad redundant.
  • License files that are not redundant cannot be combined with redundant license files.
  • The FlexNet license manager version should be 11.16 or higher.

If all of these conditions are met, then you can create a license file by copying the license features/INCREMENT of all the licenses into 1 single license file.

  • Keep the format of the license file.
  • Delete any repeating SERVER lines, use different TCP ports for each vendor daemon.
    Leaving the TCP port blank, lets FlexNet automatically allocate TCP ports for each vendor from 27000 to 27009.
  • Make sure you don't edit the content of the INCREMENT lines of the license or it will invalidate the license. 
#Please do not delete this comment line.
SERVER LICSERVER 1234567890AB 1055  # the HOSTID, MACID & license manager port
VENDOR LUMERICL port=42128
VENDOR ansyslmd port=1056      # these are the vendor daemon and listening port
USE_SERVER
# Do not alter anything after this line. 
# Copy INCREMENT lines from other lic files to the end of this file.
INCREMENT FDTD_Solutions_design LUMERICL ...
...
INCREMENT lumerical_gui ansyslmd ...

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Starting the license manager

lmgrd -c /path_to_licensefile/licensefile.lic -log /path_to_log/lmgrd.log

 

Associated files

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