FlexLM is a licensing product that can be used with applications to manage licenses for usage.  FlexLM itself can be installed on central servers and used to manage/distribute licenses in a enterprise environment.  There are three license types that can be used with FlexLM:

• Floating:  a pool of licenses that are given out and returned when a user opens and closes the product.  The advantage here is that it does not limit you on the number of users, just the number of users who use the product at the same time.
• NodeLocked: licenses that are associated to a single machine for use.  For  example a nodelocked license for my laptop will allow me to run the associated product on that machine, and that machine only.
• NamedUser:  licenses that are associated to a user id and can be used by that user on any machine.  It’s similar to a floating licenses except that it’s for a single user to be used anywhere.  At work I have 4 to 5 machines that I login to so I, and only I, could use the associated product on all 5 of those machines.

I’m going to focus on NodeLocked licenses because there seems to be some confusion on how they are installed and used.  The general method that is known to most people is that you get a nodelocked license and import (install) it on the machine it is associated to.  For example if I got a nodelocked license for my laptop it would be installed on my laptop.  This works great for a couple of these licenses but what if you are responsible for managing a lot of them?  What if you are responsible for making sure that these get properly assigned and unassigned to stay in compliance with the software vendor?

The less common method for managing and using nodelocked licenses is to install them on a central FlexLM licensing server.  Some people may thinking/saying that you can’t do that.  Let me start by saying with 100% certainty you can do this.  I’m going to paraphrase some facts about nodelocked licenses and then continue on.

1. NodeLocked licenses do not require a license server.
2. NodeLocked licenses will not have an associated LMGRD license server process.
3. Most vendors will not sell a NodeLocked license for Unix/Linux.

It seems that people get confused on the first two items and assume that it means it cannot work.  No where in any FlexLM documentation does it state you cannot install the license on a central server.  You can but its not a required and it won’t have a license process serving it up.  You can see the license on the server via an lmstat command and it will indicate whether or not the associated computer is using it.

I happen to run across some training/class information from the University of California – Irvine that focuses on FlexLM.  Their material actually comes from Macrovision who at one time owned FlexLM.  There is a specific section of the material that describes having both NodeLocked and Floating licenses on a central server for management.  Additionally I manage a single FlexLM server that has floating, nameduser, and nodelocked licenses on it.

So why did I feel it was important to put this out here?  I’ve spent nearly 3 hours on the phone with a software vendor for support and they are insisting that I cannot put nodelocked licenses on central server.  I’ve showed them logs, license files, output and everything else I have but still they continue to believe the earth is flat.  I finally directed to the information found at the university so let’s see if that clears it up.