Floating License Manager#

Floating License Manager is a server that hands out tokens for use of Lattix as long as it has tokens available. A token corresponds to a license. For example, if a user buys 9 licenses, the server can hand out up to 9 tokens which allow concurrent use by 9 users. Once a token has been acquired by a user, it remains with that user for a minimum of one hour.

Please inform your Lattix supplier if you intend to run the License Manager on a virtual machine.

Prerequisites for Installing the Floating License Manager#

You may need to install the package libxcrypt on Linux before running RLM. This has been reported on AmazonLinux 2023 If you are using the yum package manager, try:
```
sudo yum install libxcrypt-compat
```

Installing the Floating License Manager#

In order to install the Floating License Manager:

Begin with the appropriate executable for Windows or Linux (64 bit). Email support@lattix.com requesting download information.
Unzip and extract the file into a directory on the computer.
Run rlmhostid.exe with the -ether switch to obtain the hostid. For example
```
> rlmhostid -ether
rlmhostid v12.1 Copyright (C) 2006-2016, Reprise Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Hostid of this machine: 00007da1df60
```
Email the hostid to Lattix so that a license file lattix.lic can be sent to you. In the unlikely event that you have no physical network adapters on your computer, you may also run rlmhostid -32 to get a 32-bit hostid.
Copy the license file lattix.lic that was provided to you by Lattix, into the same directory.
Startup the Floating License Manager:For Windows run rlm.exe; for Linux run rlm. Note that the Floating License Manager cannot be run on a virtual machine.
Tell users the hostname of the Floating License Manager and the port number to use. The default port number 5053. You can see the port number in the license key. It is also output when the Floating License Manager runs.

Access the Floating License Manager console with your browser: http://localhost:5054. Use hostname instead of localhost if you want to control the Floating License Manager from a remote computer. From the console, you can start or stop the Floating License Manager or update the license file and ask the Floating License Manager to REREAD LICENSES.

Installing the Floating License Manager as a Service#

Run a command shell as an Administrator.
Navigate to the directory containing rlm.exe.
Enter: rlm.exe -install_service -service_name rlm-lattix -dlog logdirrlm-lattix.log

logdir is the fully qualified path in which rlm will generate its log file.

This installs a service called rlm-lattix that runs the rlm license server. Unfortunately, this does not start the rlm license server service. The simplest thing to do is to reboot the computer.

Running Architect/Analyst with a Floating License#

Start Architect or Analyst: On Windows, run exe. On Linux, run lattixarchitect.sh.
If there was no license configured in, the License dialog will be displayed. If you are changing a license, bring up the license dialog from Help–>License.
Specify License Type as Floating.
Specify the hostname of the Floating License Manager in License Host.

Specify the port number that is being used to serve licenses in License Port. Note that the default port for license service is 5053.

Remember that you must allow access through any firewalls that may be running on the client system.

Roaming#

If your floating license is configured to support roaming, clicking the Roaming button locks one of the server’s floating licenses to your computer. When roaming, your computer no longer needs to access the floating license server to use Lattix. Typically, Lattix configures floating licenses to roam for 30 days. At the end of this time, the license server will reclaim the license (i.e. make it available for others to use) and Lattix will no longer run on your computer until you can connect to the floating license server.

Typically, you will manually release the roaming floating license by connecting to the floating license server and clearing the Roaming checkbox in the License dialog in Lattix.

Running the Floating License Manager through a Firewall#

The Floating License Manager uses two TCP ports to manage floating licenses. Both ports can be specified by modifying the HOST and ISV lines of your lattix.lic file:

HOST any 001d7da1df60 5053
ISV lattix

The HOST line describes the computer running the Floating License Manager. 001d7da1df60 is the hostid of the computer and 5053 is the port number that the server listens on. You can change the port number to cause the Floating License Manager to use a different port. Changing the hostid field invalidates the license.

By default, the second port used by the Floating License Manager is determined dynamically. Obviously, this won’t work if you are trying to provide access to the Floating License Manager through a firewall. You can modify the ISV line to configure the second TCP port used by the Floating License Manager:

HOST any 001d7da1df60 5053
ISV lattix lattix.exe lattix.opt 2385

In this example, the ISV line specifies the second port used by the Floating License Manager:

“ISV lattix” is the same as the original content of the license file.
exe is the name of the process that hands out licenses for Lattix.
opt is the name of the ISV Options File that configures the lattix.exe process. It can be used to control access to the licenses for Lattix. If this file is not present, the Floating License Manager logs a (benign) error but continues to work properly.
2385 configures the second port to be used by the Floating License Manager

Documentation for the License Management System#

Lattix uses the license management software from Reprise Software. You can read RLM Manual, FAQ and other support information here..

Restricting Floating Licenses to Specific Users#

You can restrict the Architect licenses to specific users by reserving the Architect license to a group.

For example, you can add the following two lines in your “lattix.opt” file:

GROUP architects bob, amy
INCLUDE ldm architects

The first line creates a group of users called ‘architects’. This group includes ‘bob’ and ‘amy’. The second line then ensures that the product ‘ldm’ (license file refers to ‘architect’ as ‘ldm’) can only be used by ‘architects’. You can put as many people as you want in a group (and you can have multiple lines for each group in the file). Note that the names ‘bob’, ‘amy’ are user names that users use to log into their computer.

Troubleshooting#

The License Manager does not start, instead it waits for the port to become available before giving up. When you run rlm, you might see a message that the server is waiting for port. This generally means that rlm is already running. You can run into this because you are updating the license manager/license file or if you started it accidentally during the installation. If you are updating the license file, then simply bring up the console in the browser and issue a command to reread the license file. You can also kill the license manager using the task manager (or by sending a kill signal). Remember that the License Manager consists of two processes: rlm and lattix. You must terminate both processes.
After specifying the License Manager hostname and port number in the License Dialog of Architect/Analyst, you still get an error message: Invalid License. Please verify that the License Manager is running correctly. You can verify this by connecting to the License Manager from a browser and examining the status. If the License Manager is working correctly, please check that you don’t have an invalid or irrelevant “*.lic” file in the directory where you are running rlm. Often, users leave a backup or a copy of the old license file in that directory. Since rlm reads all *.lic you can end up with an old license that may not work with the current version of Architect.

Another common error is to put the license file for the floating license (lattix.lic) in the client-side config directory. The only valid lic files for the client-side are architect.lic, analyst.lic, and ldc.lic. The only valid files for the license server-side is lattix.lic.

Floating License Manager

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