Platform LSF Administration Guide Version 6.2
Chapter 8
Platform LSF Licensing
Administering Platform LSF
179
FLEXlm license server host
A permanent LSF license is tied to the host ID of a particular license server host and
cannot be used on another host.
If you are already running FLEXlm to support other software licenses, you can use the
existing license server host to manage LSF also. In this case, you will add your Platform
LSF license key to the existing FLEXlm license file.
If you are not already using FLEXlm, or prefer to administer LSF license management
separately, you must choose a host to run the license daemons. See “Selecting a license
server host” on page 179.
It is possible to run multiple license server hosts for failover purposes. See “Multiple
FLEXlm License Server Hosts” on page 185.
Selecting a license server host
By reading this, you will gain the information needed to make an educated decision when
selecting a license server host.
The FLEXlm license server daemon normally runs on one host. LSF tolerates failure of
the license server daemon for up to 60 hours, as long as the master LIM is not restarted
or shut down.
If you are installing a permanent license, choose a reliable host as the license server host
to ensure that the LSF licenses are always available. LSF cannot run if it cannot contact
the license server daemon. Although the license server host can be an LSF host, it is
usually a host outside of the cluster. The license daemons create very little load, so they
can be run on the host that is the dedicated file server for the Platform LSF software.
This permits the licenses to be available whenever the LSF software is available.
You should not make the license server host the same as the master host for the cluster.
If you do this, and the master host goes down, the backup master that takes over will
not be able to check license tokens out from the license server daemon on the original
master which has failed.
FLEXlm software for the license server host
Permanent (server-based) LSF licenses work with FLEXlm version 7.2 or later.
If your FLEXlm license server host is of the same host type as one or more LSF hosts,
the FLEXlm software is included in the LSF distribution and automatically installed
under LSF_SERVERDIR, which is a shared directory (so there is no requirement to
copy any software to your FLEXlm license server host; just include LSF_SERVERDIR
in your PATH environment variable on the license server host so that you can access the
files and start the daemons).
If your FLEXlm license server host is a different host type, you do not need the
complete LSF distribution. You can download just the FLEXlm software from
Platform’s FTP site, and copy it to any convenient location.