How does FlexLM Network Licensing Work

The FlexLM network licenses are hosted on a Windows server. This server needs to be accessible to all workstations that will need access to the network licensing. 

On this server the license service will be configured using these steps. The three key pieces are: the LMTools license manager, the vendor daemon (ideate.exe), and the license file (*.lic). The LMTools utility provides a user interface for setting up the license service. 

The server communicates with the workstations using a pair of random open TCP ports unless configured otherwise (see more here). 

Ideate software applications are installed on the workstations and the license type is set to network. When the software is launched it checks the server(s) listed in the licensing window for a service that is distributing licenses. When it finds the service, it requests the appropriate license for the software that was opened. The service verifies that a license is available and then gives out the license. It decreases the available license pool by one. This is recorded in the service log file as the license going OUT. 

While the software is open it will check to verify that the issued license is still available on the server. This happens every fifteen minutes. If the license is not available (because the license service is down or the connection to the server was lost), then the software will pop up a licensing error. Otherwise, the license is retained until the software is closed. At that point it communicates with the licensing service and returns the license. This is recorded in the service log file as the license going IN and the number of licenses in the pool increase by one.

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