User guide

Chapter 8 - Mobile Licensing
License Borrowing with BORROW
96 FLEXnet Licensing End User Guide
License Borrowing with BORROW
If a license is to be used on a computer that is intermittently connected to a license server
system, that license can be issued as a floating license with the BORROW keyword. A
BORROW license can be borrowed from a license server system via a special checkout and
used later to run an application on a computer that is no longer connected to the license server
system. License borrowing must be enabled by a vendor before an end user can borrow licenses.
With license borrowing, a vendor issues a floating license with a FEATURE line that contains
the BORROW keyword. An end user specifies the expiration date a borrowed license is to be
returned and runs the application while connected to the network which writes borrowing
information on the client computer. The license server system keeps the borrowed license
checked out. The FLEXenabled application automatically uses the local borrowing data to do
checkouts during the borrow period. If enabled by the vendor, borrowed licenses can be
returned early, that is, before the borrow period expires. Upon the earlier of either the expiration
of the borrow period or the early return of a borrowed license, the local borrowing data no
longer authorizes checkouts and the license server system returns the borrowed license to the
pool of available licenses. No clock synchronization is required between the license server
machine and the machine running the FLEXenabled application.
Initiating License Borrowing
If a vendor has enabled license borrowing by issuing a license file that contains a FEATURE
line with the BORROW keyword, an end user initiates license borrowing in one of three ways:
• Using the borrowing interface in application, if provided in the application
• Running the
lmborrow utility to set LM_BORROW
• Setting the
LM_BORROW environment variable directly
Application Interface
The user initiates license borrowing this way only if the application provides a borrowing
interface. Information about this is supplied by the vendor.
Running the lmborrow Utility
lmborrow is one of the lmutil/LMTOOLS utilities. To initiate borrowing, the user runs
lmborrow from the command line or through LMTOOLS:
lmborrow {vendor|all} enddate [time]
where vendor is the vendor daemon that serves the licenses to be borrowed, or all specifies
all vendor daemons in the license server system.
enddate is the date the license is to be
returned in
dd-mmm-yyyy format. time is optional and is specified in 24-hour format (hh:mm)
in the FLEXenabled application’s local time. If
time is unspecified, the checkout lasts until the
end of the given end date.
For example:
lmborrow sampled 20-aug-2001 13:00