User guide

Chapter 1 - Introduction and Overview
FLEXnet Licensing Components
16 FLEXnet Licensing End User Guide
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. This behavior is defined by the vendor in the FLEXenabled
application.
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 machines and vendor daemons, and at least one line of data (called FEATURE
or INCREMENT lines) for each FLEXenabled 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. FLEXenabled applications that are licensed with a node-locked,
uncounted license need only read a valid license file to run—they do not need a license server
system.
Most applications have an expected location for the license file, documented by that
application. Override this location by setting the environment variable
LM_LICENSE_FILE to
point elsewhere, or by following instructions supplied with the FLEXenabled application. If
your site has software from multiple vendors with incompatible license files (due to different
sets of servers), keep the data in separate files and set the
LM_LICENSE_FILE variable to
reference multiple files.
It is recommended that you keep a link (on UNIX), a shortcut (on Windows), or copy of the
license file in the vendor’s expected license location, so that users do not need to set
LM_LICENSE_FILE to run their applications. For license files containing counted (floating)
licenses, it is recommended to place a USE_SERVER line directly after the SERVER line. For
details, see Appendix B, “License File Format.” See also Appendix D, “FLEXnet Licensing
Environment Variables.”
The FLEXenabled Application
The FLEXenabled application is linked with the program module (called the FLEXnet
Licensing client library) that provides the communication with the license server system.
During execution, the FLEXenabled application communicates with the vendor daemon to
request a license.
Debug Log File
The debug log file contains status and error messages useful for debugging the license server
system. Some of the debug log output describes events specific to
lmgrd and some of the debug
log output describes events specific to each vendor daemon. See Appendix G, “The Debug Log
File,” for more information about this file.