Licensing: Setting up the client for a floating license

ID 747327
Updated 7/26/2019
Version Latest
Public

author-image

By

Introduction

This article applies to customers who have an Intel® Software Development Product with a floating license. The simplest way to set up the client license is to provide the serial number during product installation while the machine can connect to the running license server. 

However, there are situations where the license manager is not available or the connection cannot be established for product activation. Or the product is already installed.  
There are three methods to set up the client license, in order of recommended usage:

Use the client license file 

The client license file is different from the server version in that it only contains the license server information followed by a line with USE_SERVER.  You can download this from the Intel® Registration Center or modify the server license file to contain the following:

SERVER <server-name1> <hostid1> <port1>
SERVER <server-name2> <hostid2> <port2> //comment: needed for multiple servers only
SERVER <server-name3> <hostid3> <port3> //comment: needed for multiple servers only
USE_SERVER  

The server-name, hostid and port number information can be found in the floating license file. The file must have a .lic extension.  You can save it to a temporary directory or to the directory where "INTEL_LICENSE_FILE" points to.

The default license folder for Intel Software Products is as below: 

  • On Windows*:     [Program Files]\Common files\Intel\Licenses\
  • On Linux*:          /opt/intel/licenses/
  • On OS* X:          /Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Intel/Licenses

Use port@hostname

The product license checker uses environment variable INTEL_LICENSE_FILE to determine where to look for license files beyond the defaults.  You can set the value as the license server's port@hostname to connect directly to the license server without using a license file.  If you have a redundant server (triad) setup, all three servers must be specified in the environment variable.

Setting environment variables is different on Windows or Linux* or OS* X. Please see this article How to set INTEL_LICENSE_FILE Environment Variable for steps. 
The server-name and port number information can be found in the floating license file.

Use the server license

The server license is the exact license used by the floating license manager.  If you choose to use this method, you do not need to have the Intel® Software License Manager running when installing the product. However, any changes to the license file used by the server must also be applied to the client, or the license check will fail.

References
1. Intel® Software License Manager Getting Started Tutorial

2. Installation overview and troubleshooting instructions for host and clients can be found in the Intel® Software License Manager User's Guide or here.