How to set up a license server

This article explains how to set up a license server and how to install the server license file.
For the installation of a machine-bound license, please check the respective article.

A server license (also called “floating license”) allows a flexible administration and usage as it is hosted by a server and distributed to compute clients on demand. Such a server may manage the license requests for hundreds or thousands of software clients.

Revenera, the vendor of the licensing infrastructure, supports two flavors of license servers.

• A lightweight executable lmgrd
• A web interface lmadmin

lmadmin was once meant to replace the older lmgrd. lmadmin comes with a web interface, which makes it easy for the software user (You) to administer license files received by the software vendor (BioSolveIT) and moreover, to monitor the usage of the licenses. Disadvantages of lmadmin are, that it has dependencies to other software, mainly Java. And it first has to be installed on the license server machine, which makes it sometimes harder for system administrators.

On the other side, lmgrd is a pure command line tool. Accompanying with lmgrd, there are additional diagnostic tools for the command line to monitor the license usage. Absolutely no installation is needed here. Disadvantage: using command line tools in a terminal may be uncomfortable to windows users.

Most important here is to mention, that both flavors, lmgrd and lmadmin, are totally compatible and exchangeable regarding to their core function, serving licenses to the client software.

So, if you want to run the license server on a lightweight linux machine, we recommend to use lmgrd. If you want to have the web interface monitoring features, then you should rather use lmadmin.

How to set up the license server with lmgrd

1. First, please download the BioSolveIT flexlm package from our download page. Select the suitable package corresponding to your operating system.
2. Login to the computer, where you want to run the license server. Revenera Software strongly discourages running the license servers with elevated privileges. However, to install the license server as a system service, you might need elevated privileges during installation.
3. Extract the package on the license server computer.
4. Change to the subdirectory license/bin of the extracted package. On linux, make sure that the file BIOSOLVE has executable rights – if in doubt, just execute chmod +x BIOSOLVE.
5. Copy the license file, that you received from us, into this directory. Then start the license server by the command (replace “license_file.lic” by the actual license file name)
   % lmgrd -c license_file.lic -l lmgrd.log

1. First, please download the BioSolveIT flexlm package from our download page. Select the suitable package corresponding to your operating system.
2. Login to the computer, where you want to run the license server. Revenera Software strongly discourages running the license servers with elevated privileges. However, to install the license server as a system service, you might need elevated privileges during installation.
3. Extract the package on the license server computer.
4. Follow the installation notes in the chapter License Server Manager “lmadmin” in package file license/doc/fnp_LicAdmin.pdf
5. Copy the BIOSOLVE vendor daemon from the package directory license/bin to the new lmadmin installation directory. On linux, make sure that BIOSOLVE has executable rights – if in doubt, just execute chmod +x BIOSOLVE.
6. Start lmadmin.  For running lmadmin as a service, see details in fnp_LicAdmin.pdf
7. Security recommendations for the lmadmin web interface
   • The license server should only be accessible from within a local area network (LAN) such as a corporate network.
   • Firewalls and other policies, used by an enterprise to protect their own resources, should also be extended to machines where FlexNet Publisher license servers are run.
8. If you have problems in logging into the lmadmin webinterface, see here.

A license server consists of several processes, that have to communicate with the tool process (e.g. SeeSAR).  Therefore, it is essential to configure your system’s firewall to enable this communication!  For details on which ports have to be accessible see ports used by the license server system.

The license server uses two ports to communicate with the tool, e.g. SeeSAR. It is absolutely necessary that both ports are open and accessible on the license server! We recommend using 27000 for the SERVER port and 27001 for the VENDOR port. Please refer to ports used by the license server system on how to change these ports to your needs.

In order to check, whether the specific ports are accessible, execute the following simple utilities from the client computer, i.e., the computer where the BioSolveIT tool should run.

In the following examples, please replace license.mytherapx.com by the name of your license server’s machine, and 27000 / 27001 by the ports set up in your license server’s configuration. When choosing the name you might experiment a little bit with different variations, e.g. only the machine name like “licserver123”, or the fully qualified name like in the example below, or even the IP.

• Linux: nc (netcat), e.g.

    % nc -v license.mytherapx.com 27000
    % nc -v license.mytherapx.com 27001

  On success, something like
  Connection to license.mytherapx.com 27000 port [tcp/*] succeeded!

  should be printed, the command then has to be terminated by Ctrl-C.

• Windows: Test-NetConnection in the windows powershell, e.g.

    PS> Test-NetConnection license.mytherapx.com -p 27000
    PS> Test-NetConnection license.mytherapx.com -p 27001

  Success or failure is reported here in the last line of the output:
  TcpTestSucceeded : True

  Or “False” instead of “True” on failure.

“%” and “PS>” are the terminal prompts and don’t belong to the command in these examples. Replace 27000 and 27001 in this example by the real ports you are effectively using.

Supplying the license key

Now, please follow the details given in How to update or add a server license

Ubuntu issue

Ubuntu users may observe a command not found error message or similar, when trying to start lmadmin or lmgrd. Please see this page for details.

If this fails with error “old password is incorrect”, please follow the steps described here: https://community.revenera.com/s/article/password-reset-of-admin-user-after-the-first-installation-of-lmadmin-it-failed-with-error-old-password-is-incorrect