License issue

[John.Pryal]

Hi, i work for a multi-national company, we have sites all over Europe. All of these sites need access to Creo at one time or another. The company has a number of Creo licenses which are managed by a license server at one site. These are floating licenses which are taken on a first come, first served basis, or at least that is what we used to think. There are too many instances just recently, where i, or one of my colleagues lose a license we had. One minute we are working away without a problem, the next we receive an error saying license is lost. Then we have to start phoning around the group, to see who is using what & whether a license can be closed to free one up. We are concerned that once all the licenses are taken, & another user comes along, that somehow that user takes priority over anyone currently using. I don't anything about the license management software or how it works, or whether is can be configured to give a certain user a license at the expense of another. I guess my question is, is this possible? I guess ultimately, my company needs more licenses if more & more people are using Creo, but thats not my call.

John

[ptc-4893928]

Hi John,

You may be able to limit the Users on License server machine by enabling the license port for the set number of users, thereby blocking people from unknowingly pick license. Also if there are extension licenses bundled up, you can configure your Creo startup command to pick only the required extensions.

I am sure this doesn't completly solve your problem, as I too have such a situation, and am looking for a solution.

Arun

[John.Pryal]

Hi Arun, yes, we already have extension licenses configured within Creo start-up, when i launch Creo, i can select default Creo, AAX (advanced assembly) or Tool Design, depending upon requirements. What you described is what we understood to be the case, that if all licenses were taken, then another user comes along looking for a license, then it would be that person who receives the error, that no license is available. We are concerned that another user can simply launch Creo & take a license (unknowingly of course). Another thing we have learned recently about our license server, is, if Creo crashes (i know it will come as quite a surprise to hear that, Creo crashing, perish the thought), then the license does not know this, it still thinks the license is being used by that user. The user tries to launch Creo again, no license available. We know this because the IT people on site where the server is located, can see what licenses are in use & where, & the crashed license is showing as been used & functional. The server then has to be restarted, to fix things.

Thanks

John

[MartinHanak]

John,

if the Creo crash arrives after 20 minutes initial interval, then user can try to free the license using ptcflush.bat.

Martin Hanak

[John.Pryal]

Good to know, next time we crash, we will try this. I am sure we won't have to wait too long

Thanks

John

[BenLoosli]

If the IT people at your server site are runing the PTCflush command, it will drop all licenses that have been inactive for 20 minutes. Then you will see the warning that license has been dropped, but you may pick up one if there is one available when youn resume working.

There is a PTCstatus command that can be run to see who has which licenses checked out and how many are still available. You may want to run this before the PTCflush to see if there are licenses available or if tjhe same person as multiple licenses.

If all licenses are really being used, the new person to request a license should get a License Unavailable message when they start Creo. It should not drop an existing license for them. There are settings in the PTC.opt file that can reserve licenses for indiviuals or groups.

[MartinHanak]

John,

in case that your company uses lmgrd version of FLEXnet software (represented by running processes lmgrd.exe and ptc_d.exe), then it can be configured via ptc.opt file located in flexnet_LOADPOINT\licensing directory on license server.

One of default options is TIMEOUTALL 7200 ... this means that the license is reserved for user who launched it for 7200 seconds. When user stops working (this mean does not click commands in user interface) then the license is released for other users after 2 hours.

The whole list of options is available in flex.pdf file located in Creo2_LOADPOINT\Creo 2.0\Common Files\M070\help\usascii directory or in flexnet_LOADPOINT\html\usascii\proe\helpSysTop\siteset directory.

Note:

License is lost is usually related to bad communication between client (Creo workstation) and license server.

Martin Hanak

[John.Pryal]

Thanks Martin, i did expect a reply from you on this topic . This does sound promising, i will look into this. You are right about one thing, 'License is lost' due to bad communication, we have a very unstable internet connection, we have issues almost every day, we keep banging the drum, but nobody listens. I will mark your answer as 'Correct' for now. If we continue to have problems i will come back to you, if that is ok?

Thanks again

John

[MartinHanak]

John,

if you have communication problems, then consider license borrowing. Borrowed license works as license locked to Creo workstation. This means you can launch it several times and maybe it does not "disappear" when Creo crashes.

Martin Hanak

[John.Pryal]

I looked into this one before & was told "NO" by the powers that be. Out of curiosity, how how can a license be borrowed for, the maximum time? & can you just keep borrowing it indefinitely?

John

[MartinHanak]

Maximum interval = current day + 14 following days (until midnight).

[Mahesh_Sharma]

John,

As Martin mentioned maximum borrow duration is 15 days (0+14), however it will enable after setting environment variable LM_BORROW_DURATION on client machine.

https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS34737

[BrianMartin]

Hi John...

Also... this is a strange but possible option. Do you believe any of your users know how to flush a license? Many of my users are old school guys who understand how to perform a ptcstatus and then supply the correct parameters to the ptcflush command. This will boot a user off their license. If the person doing the booting is ready to launch Creo after freeing the license, they'll get it and the other guy will have to save his work and exit the session.

We've had to implement techniques to prevent this so people don't go around "flushing" each other when licenses get tight!

Also - we only allow license borrowing in select circumstances due to the problems Martin mentioned above.

Just a thought!

Thanks,

-Brian

[John.Pryal]

Thanks for the information Brian. I am not sure anyone within our organization has that knowledge, but who knows really?

Nice to see you back in town.

John

[fgarciarubio]

Hello Martin,

We have at our company lmadmin_ptc service. Is the ptc.opt option still valid/available even with this service? or only with lmgrd.exe?

Also, for years I have been able to ptcflush duplicate licenses. PTC tells me that that is no possible from a client machine, only from license server and/or from user machine. what's going on?

thanks.

Frank

[MartinHanak]

Hi Frank,

because I do not like lmadmin_ptc service, I decided to use lmgrd.exe (FLEXlm server for PTC service). Currently I am using FLEXnet 10.8 in combination with Creo Parametric 2.0 and 3.0.

Therefore (if you can) uninstall lmadmin_ptc license manager and install FLEXlm server for PTC license from ProE WF5 (or Creo Elements/Pro 5.0) installation media.

FLEXnet installation packages can be downloaded via hyperlinks included in Hardware Notes – FlexNet License Server - PTC.com

Martin Hanak

[davehaigh]

John,

I gave a talk on license management at last year's PTC Live conference.

It should answer all your questions. I have a copy of both my presenter copy, better to read with the notes pages, and the attendee copy, on the PTCUser site. If you don't have access to that, email me and I'll send you the attendee copy.

Here.

http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/do/sd/sid=2464&type=0

In response to those that don't like the new flexnet license software. I totally understand. I didn't like it at first becuse I didn't understand it. Now that I understand it better, I perfer it. The advantage is it's available via a web page. You can do many things without having to bounce the license server like you used to with lmgrd.

Understand, this is not PTC's software, they just went with the latest version from flexnet. Unforunately, like most stuff from PTC there is no good documentation from PTC on how this new version of the license manager works. I have enough in the above presentation to get you up to speed in short order. I still don't know all I'd like to about it. But I know enough.

[bnielsen-2]

@davehaigh,

It looks as though that link is now dead.  Could you please post a new one if it's still available? Thanks!