Platform LSF Administration Guide Version 6.2

Chapter 8
Platform LSF Licensing
Administering Platform LSF
185
Multiple FLEXlm License Server Hosts
This section applies to permanent licenses only. Read this section if you are interested in
the various ways you can distribute your licenses. This is valuable if you are interested in
having some form of backup in case of failure. Compare with “Selecting a license server
host” on page 179 to make an educated decision.
Although it is not necessary, you may want to understand how the FLEXlm license
server behaves prior to setting up your license server hosts. For a brief description on
how FLEXlm works, see “FLEXlm license server” on page 171.
If you are concerned about the reliability of your license server host, you can distribute
the LSF licenses across multiple FLEXlm license server hosts. If one license server host
goes down, LSF will not lose all of the available licenses. There are two ways to configure
multiple license server hosts:
◆ Multiple license files with multiple license server hosts
For more information, see “Distributed license server hosts” on page 185.
◆ Single license file with three redundant license server hosts
For more information, see “Redundant license server hosts” on page 186.
Distributed license server hosts
Configuring multiple license server hosts is optional. It provides a way to keep LSF
running if a license server host goes down. There are two ways to configure multiple
license servers. This section describes distributed license server hosts. See “Redundant
license server hosts” on page 186 for information on the other configuration.
Distributing licenses over multiple server hosts provides a fallback, in case your license
server daemons fail.
With this method, you run multiple license server daemons, each with its own license
file. Each license file has a
SERVER line keyed to the license server host it is assigned to.
The cluster is partially licensed as long as any one license server daemon is running, and
fully licensed when all license server daemons are running. When a license server host is
unavailable, the licenses managed by that host are unavailable. You decide how many
LSF licenses to put on each license server host.
Enabling multiple license server hosts
See the procedures for installing and configuring a permanent license. There are a few
differences when you use distributed license server hosts:
1 See “Getting a permanent license” on page 176. You must obtain multiple license
files, with your total number of licenses divided appropriately among the license
server hosts. You must provide the following information for each license server
host:
❖ Host name and FLEXlm host ID
❖ The products and number of licenses you want to be managed by this host
2 See “LSF_LICENSE_FILE parameter” on page 177. Specify the location of all the
licenses in LSF_LICENSE_FILE, not just one. Use a pipe (|) to separate each
location. List the primary license server host first (the one you want LSF to contact
first).