Tech Illustrator License Server Setup

Understanding and Setting Up Server Based Licensing

Dynamic Licensing

Auto-trol License Manager (ATTClm) allows a pool of licenses to be shared by multiple Tech Illustrator users on a license network. To utilize floating licenses a license server must be set up which allocates licenses to individual end users. ATTClm is based on the Flexera Software product, FLEXnet Publisher.

When Tech Illustrator displays the Licensing dialog it means that the license is either non-existent, expired or not recognized.

Figure 1. Tech Illustrator Licensing dialog. Note: It does not mean that TI needs an executable (.exe) file. It simply means that TI is unable to check out a license.

License Server Setup

To set up a license server, you will need to obtain a license file from the Auto-trol Licensing Team and then install and configure ATTClm on your server. You will need administrative privileges on your server to install ATTClm. Although ATTClm supports a variety of configuration options these steps will take you through the most common setup. For more information on system requirements and configuring ATTClm, please refer to the ATTClm Release Notes and the License Management

Administrator’s Guide. Both of these documents can be found in the docs directory of the ATTClm installation directory (C:\attclm5.1\docs).

Licensing data is stored in a text file called the license file. The license file contains information about the server nodes and vendor daemons, and one line of data (called a FEATURE line) for each licensed feature. The license server daemon—also known as a Windows service—uses the license file.

Note: Throughout these instructions the computer on which you install and run ATTClm will be referred to as the “license server” or simply “server.” The computers that run Tech Illustrator and request their licenses from the server will be called “clients.”

1. Acquire a license file You will need to provide the Auto-trol Licensing Team with the MAC address of your server. A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to every computer's network interface and your license file will be tied to your license server's MAC address. The server's MAC address must be accurate, otherwise Ti will not run. You can obtain your server's MAC address by clicking Windows Start and typing in cmd which will open up a command line window. When the command prompt appears type the getmac /v and press enter. The active MAC address(es) for that machine—called “Physcial Address” by the getmac command—will be printed to the command window. Send the MAC address associated with your server's wired Ethernet interface to the Auto-trol Licensing Team. You can request your license by creating a ticket at support.versata.com.

2. Download ATTClm Download the license server using the Auto-trol Product Release System. Using a web browser go to release01.versata.com and log in using your organization's credentials. If you do not have credentials for this site, please request them by opening a ticket at support.versata.com. After logging into the Auto-trol Product Release System look for "Auto-trol License Management (ATTClm)" in the list of products available and click the
Download link. Save the file, ATTClm_Tools_5_1.zip, to a location that is accessible by your license server.

3. Install ATTClm Auto-trol License Management must be installed on your license server before use.

a. Using Windows Explorer right click on the CD_ATTCLM_Tools_5_1.zip and extract the contents. A folder named ATTClm_Tools_5_1 will be created.

b. Double click to enter the folder CD_ATTClm_Tools_5_1. This folder contains the ATTClm installer. Confirm that your are logged in as an administrator and run SETUP.EXE. If a Windows security warning appears acknowledge it.

c. The ATTClm 5.1 InstallShield Wizard will appear. Read the information on the Welcome dialog and click Next.

Figure 2. ATTClm 5.1 Welcome dialog.

d. The License Agreement dialog will appear. Review the license agreement and if you accept the terms select “I accept the term in the license agreement” and click Next to proceed.

Figure 3. ATTClm 5.1 License Agreement.

e. The Customer Information dialog will appear. Enter your user name and your organization and click Next.

Figure 4. ATTClm 5.1 Customer Information.

f. The Setup Type dialog will appear. ATTClm 5.1 has no custom setup options so click “Complete” and then click Next.

Figure 5. ATTClm 5.1 Setup Type.

g. A Ready to Install the Program dialog will appear. Click Install to start the installation.

Figure 6. ATTClm 5.1 Ready to Install the Program

The installation will take a few moments to complete. A status dialog will show the progress of the installation procedure. When the installation is complete the InstallShield Wizard Completed dialog will appear. Click Finish to exit the wizard.

Figure 7. ATTClm 5.1 InstallShield Wizard Completed dialog.

4. Save your license file When you receive your license file save it to a location that is accessible to your server. We recommend that you save the file to a directory that does not contain spaces in the path and that you use the file name provided by the Auto-trol Licensing Team. ATTClm's adm directory (C:\attclm5.1\adm) is a good location to save your license file.

5. Edit your license file You will need to edit your license file and provide the hostname of your license server and confirm that the ATTClm path is correct. Using an ASCII text editor, open your license file.

a. Find the line that begins with SERVER. It will look like this:

SERVER xxx 1234567890AB TCP:7119

The line will contain the MAC address you provided the Auto-trol Licensing Team and the port used by the license service. Replace xxx with the host name of your server. If you do not know the hostname of your license server, open a command prompt and enter the command hostname. The license file port number must be larger than 1024 and different from all port numbers currently in use. Do not change the TCP/IP port number unless you find 7119 is already in use. If you are using FLEXnet licensing from two vendors on the same license server, put a unique port number in the server line of each vendor’s license file to keep from colliding with another vendor’s port number. Please refer to the License Management Administrator’s Guide for more information.

b. Find the line that begins with DAEMON. It will look like this: 

DAEMON attclmd "/attc/attclm*.*/bin/attclmd"

Change the path contained in the double quotes to that of the attclmd executable (C:\attclm5.1\bin\attclmd.exe). Your line should now look like this:

DAEMON attclmd "C:\attclm5.1\bin\attclmd.exe" 

c. Save your license file.

NOTE: The license files created by the Auto-trol Licensing Team are typically named “attclm” along with a numeric site code, the MAC address associated with the license and a “.d” extension (for dynamic license types.) Some users prefer to rename their license file to a simple name such as “license.dat” while others prefer to keep the original file name. While any valid Windows file name may be used we suggest you always keep a backup copy of your original license file.

6. Configure ATTClm to use your license file

a. Run LMTOOLS as administrator. Click Start > All Programs > Auto-trol > ATTC License Manager > LMTOOLS. (C:\attclm5.1\bin\lmtools.exe)

b. Click on the Config Services tab.

i. Enter attclmd in the “Service Name” field.

ii. Enter or browse and select C:\attclm5.1\bin\lmgrd.exe in the “Path to the lmgrd.exe file” field.

iii. Enter the path to your license license file in the “Path to the license file” field. Note that if you use the Browse tool, the search extension is defaulted to .lic. Select “All files (*.*)” to see files with every extension.

iv. Enter or browse to create a log file name. For example, C:\attclm5.1\adm\ATTClm.log.

v. Check the “Start Server at Power Up” and “Use Services” boxes.

vi. Click the “Save Service” button. LMTOOLS saves your configuration information to the registry.

Figure 8. LMTOOLS Config Services tab.

c. Click on the Server/License File tab click “Configuration using Services” and then select attclmd from the service list. Check the box “LMTOOLS ignores license file path environment variables.”

Figure 9. LMTOOLS Service/License File tab.

d. Click the Start/Stop/Reread tab. Select attclmd from the list in “FLEXnet license services installed on this computer” and click “Start Server.”

Figure 10. LMTOOLS Start/Stop/Reread tab.

Your license server is now set up and ready for use.

End User Setup

To make use of a shared license, each Tech Illustrator client must be configured to request licenses from the ATTClm server. To do this, you must log in as an administrator on each computer that has TI installed and set a system environment variable.

1. Log in as administrator on the client computer.

2. Click Start and right click on Computer and click Properties.

3. The Windows Properties dialog will appear. Click on Advanced system settings in the left pane.

Figure 11. Windows System Properties dialog.

4. Click “Environment Variables...” and the Windows Environment Variables dialog will appear.

Figure 12. Windows Environment Variables dialog.

5. There are two types of environment variables, User and System. Tech Illustrator's license variable is a System variable so it must be set using the controls on the bottom section of the Environment Variables dialog.

6. Click “New...” in the System variables part of the Environment Variables dialog, which is highlighted above in Figure 12. The Windows Edit System Variable dialog will appear.

Figure 13. Windows Edit System Variable dialog.

7. Enter LM_LICENSE_FILE in the “Variable name” field. Enter <port>@<hostname>in the “Variable value” field, where <port> is TCP port number found on the SERVER line of your license file and <hostname> is the hostname of your license server.

If a client has installed two or more products that utilize FLEXnet Publisher licensing, multiple variable values may be entered, separated by a semicolon. For example, 

7119@server_name;7120@server_name allows would allow two FLEXnet licensed products to be run on the same computer. Each product will use a separate vendor supplied license service running on the license server.

You may also specify <port>@<ip_address> as the variable value, though using the server's hostname is preferable on networks where IP addresses are dynamically allocated, that is where DHCP is used.

Finally you can optionally provide the path to your license file as the variable value. For example, C:\attclm5.1\adm\attclm_87654_1234567890ab.d. You will either have to make the server's license file visible to end users via a network share, or copy the license file to client machines. This does not eliminate the requirement that the license server be up and running and visible to the client machine, TI simply reads the port and server info from the license file.

Given that the latter option can create additional administrative burden we recommend using the <port>@<hostname> form. Contact your network administrator if you need help deciding what will work best in your network environment.

8. Launch Tech Illustrator to confirm that the license variable is correctly set.

Troubleshooting

If the Tech Illustrator's Licensing dialog appears when you run TI, you can troubleshoot the problem.

1. Log into your license server as administrator.

2. Click Start > All Programs > Auto-trol > ATTC License Manager > LMTOOLS.

3. When the LMTOOLS application window appears, click on the Server Status tab.

Figure 14. LMTOOLS Server Status tab.

4. Click the “Perform Status Enquiry” button and a summary will appear in the text area of the dialog.

5. If errors are reported, confirm that the license file name shown at the bottom of the dialog is correct and that the server name, MAC address and path to attclmd.exe contained in the license file are all correct.

6. Click on the Config Services tab and confirm that the variables are all set as specified above. 

7. Click on the Server Diags tab and enter the feature for your installed product. The feature is listed at the top of Tech Illustrator's Licensing dialog and is usually V637. Enter the feature—it is case sensitive so use a capital V—in the “Feature Name” field and click “Perform Diagnostics.”

Figure 15. LMTOOLS Server Diags tab.

8. If LMTOOLS does not report any errors, but TI does not run on client machines, then there may be a problem with clients communicating with the server. To test this, you can install TI on
your license server and set LM_LICENSE_FILE to <port>@<hostname> as described above. If TI runs on the license server, but not on the client machines, then the clients are probably unable to access the specified port on the license server.

9. Log into your client machine and open a command prompt. Enter set LM_LICENSE_FILE and press return. The value of your LM_LICENSE_FILE system variable will be output to the command prompt.

LM_LICENSE_FILE=7119@server_name

10. Confirm that the port number listed is the same as what is in the SERVER line of your license file.

11. Confirm that the server name matches the name in the SERVER line of your license file.

12. Confirm that the license server is reachable from your client machine. Open a command prompt of the client and enter ping <hostname>, where <hostname> is the server name or IP address used in your LM_LICENSE_FILE system variable. The ping command should list replies from the server; if any packets are lost, consult your network administrator.

13. If Tech Illustrator run on your license server but does not run on client nodes, then a computer or network firewall may be preventing the client computers from communicating with the server via the specified port.

If you continue to experience problems with Tech Illustrator license setup, please create a help ticket describing your issue at support.versata.com.