cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Paul_Diop
By Level 5 Flexeran
Level 5 Flexeran

This article describe the configuration of a Sentinel based license server using FNMLC.

FNMLC is a tool created to ease and  speed up the integration of concurrent license server(s) to the FlexNet Manager for engineering application  ("FNMEA") tool. It will automatically detect FLEXlm license server(s) on a system and configure them according to Flexera best practices rules. If you need more information on the best practices rules please contact Flexera.

You must own a valid license of FNMEA to using this tool and perform all the steps described in the document.

You can download FNMLC here

This is currently the first Beta version that runs only on Windows

Below is a screenshot of the tool after a successful installation

fnmlc.png

 

DISCLAIMER

Subject to the terms below, you may use the Solutions provided in the library for the purpose of providing services directly related to Flexera products to your customers.

Flexera will have no Support obligation to you or your customers for the Solutions unless otherwise agreed in writing.

SOLUTIONS ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS. NEITHER FLEXERA NOR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, TITLE, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NONINFRINGEMENT. LICENSEE MAY HAVE OTHER STATUTORY RIGHTS. HOWEVER, TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE DURATION OF STATUTORILY REQUIRED WARRANTIES, IF ANY, WILL BE LIMITED TO THE SHORTER OF (I) THE STATUTORILY REQUIRED PERIOD OR (II) THIRTY (30) DAYS FROM LICENSEE’S ACCEPTANCE OF THE AGREEMENT.

Any third party or Flexera partner uploading software code is granting permission free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the software code and any associated documentation files (the "Solutions"), to deal in the Solutions without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Solutions, and to permit persons to whom the Solutions are furnished to do so.

IN NO EVENT WILL FLEXERA BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS OR DATA, OR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOLUTIONS OR ANY DATA SUPPLIED THEREWITH, EVEN IF FLEXERA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY. IN NO CASE WILL FLEXERA’S LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF THE SOLUTIONS EXCEED FIFTY DOLLARS (US $50).

If you are located in Europe, Middle East, Africa, or India, this Agreement will be governed by the laws of England and Wales and you shall submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales; if you are located in any other region, this Agreement will be governed by the laws of the State of Illinois and the United States without regard to conflicts of laws provisions thereof. This Agreement is not subject to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the Sale of Goods.

Introduction

Intended audience

This document is intended to be used by the following people:

  • Technical and solution architects.
  • Systems engineers responsible for implementing and maintaining the FlexNet Manager for Engineering Application (“FNMEA”) system.
  • Network and security personnel who have responsibility for networks and infrastructure the FNMEA system relies upon.
  • Flexera consultants working on the system.

It is assumed that readers of this document have completed an appropriate FNMEA administration training course to understand basic concepts and aspects of the FNMEA product solution.

You also need to have an FNMEA agent installed and running. For more information on agent installation please consult the documentation.

 

This Article

This document describes the implementation of the Sentinel licensing management (“SLM”) into a common report log (“CRL”) connector. The goal of a common report log connector is to convert a usage log file coming from Sentinel license technology or another technology like Reprise to a format that complies with the FlexNet Manager for Engineering Application (“FNMEA”) reporting format. The advantage of doing it is the possibility to use a single console for all your license technology management and  reporting needs.

The connectors will have several roles. They will take the original report file (or usage file) produced by SLM and convert them into an appropriate format.  We will then have the FNMEA agent transfer this file to the central system daily. If the conversion fails for any reasons, if the import fails for any reasons the scripts will log this information. Whether it is successful or not, the log file, as well as some information about the conversion will be sent as an email after each time it runs.

All connectors are written using the Microsoft .NET. They require that the .NET Framework 4.7.2 be installed on the machine.

In this document we will review how to implement the Sentinel Log Converter into a new server and send the data to FNMEA.

Third party architecture

The third-party architecture in FNMEA allows users to implement admin and reporting functions for license technologies that are not licensed using the FLEXlm licensing management technology. These could be Reprise or Sentinel or any other licensing management system that will produce usage data. It could virtually convert anything so long as we can read meaningful usage data from the engine. It requires to build a data converter in any language that you feel comfortable with. Upon converting the usage data file, the FNMEA agent will then ingest it and send it to FNMEA

Below you will find a diagram that represents the implementation of the FNMEA third party architecture and all existing converter created at the time of this writing.

thirdParty_arch.png

Implementation

The following section of this document describes the implementation steps.

Configuring License usage

You must enable the sentinel license usage. To do this you have two ways.

 

Add/Update the following registry key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\RainbowTechnologies\SentinelLM\Current Version]

With the following string

CommandlineOpts

And value

-z 1048576 -l C:\SMT_License_Server\Logfiles\usage.log

 

Set the following environment variable

 set LSERVOPTS=-Z 1048575 -l C:\SMT_License_Server\Logfiles\usage.log

the location of the log file could be anything you want

 

We recommend using the environment variable.

For more information go to the sentinel documentation for enabling usage.

This is a prerequisite before moving any further make sure the usage.log file contains data.

Configure FNMEA

On the FNMEA admin server, in the root of your installation, you need to unzip, copy and paste the following folder called custom,  you can find the latest copy here.

When/if asked to replace files always say yes.

The folder path should look like the following

custom_folder.png

On common mistake is to have the custom folder twice – make sure the server and webapps folders are directly underneath the custom folder.

You then need to reconfigure FNMEA

Go the root installation of FNMEA admin server

Run the command flexnet stop

flexnet_stop.png

Once stopped run the command flexnet site make

flexnet_site.png

Then run the command flexnet service start

flexnet_start.png

You are now ready to configure the license server

Configure the Sentinel License server

After the log file and FNMEA have been configured as described on the previous step, make sure the FNMEA agent has been installed on the machine. To install it refer to the agent documentation . 

Now run the FNMEA License Configurator, If it starts properly you should be presented with the following application.

fnmlc.png

Go to the “SENTINEL CONFIG” link and enter the information below:

sentinel_config.png

Setting Name

Description

Log File :

Path to the Sentinel log file as created or discovered by the previous step

LSMON PATH :

This is the path of the lsmon tool. It is provided by sentinel to monitor license manager transaction. For more information and download refer to the Thales documentation

LSUSAGE PATH :

This is the path of the lsusage tool. It is provided by sentinel to provide  license usage transaction. For more information and download refer to the Thales documentation

Days to Expiry :

The tool is going to email you when the licenses are going to expire. This is the number of days to start sending email reminder.

Date Format :

The date format as represented by the server. you can see that when running the lsmon tool manually

Below is an example the format is ddd MMM dd HH:mm:ss yyyy please update according to you settings

date_format.png

Use Encrypted

If you’ve enabled encryption, then you need to check this box. It will allow you to point to the XML mapping file. Below is an example

useEncrypted.png

Agent root folder

This is the folder where the agent is installed. The tool will automatically configure it

Vendor Name

The name of the vendor daemon. This is arbitrary and you can provide whatever name you want. Once set we recommend to keep it for this application

FNMEA Server URL

The URL of the FNMEA admin server

RECIPIENTS

The mail address of the user or users that will receive notifications by the script

HOST

The name of the smtp server used to relay emails

PORT

The port of the smtp server

FROM

The from address for the email sent

SUBJECT

The subject of the email

 

Below is a screen shot that represent a configuration that is not using encryption

sentinel_config_full.png

Below is a screenshot that is using encryption

sentinel_config_full_encrypt.png

Once you are done and you have verified the information. just click on “Configure

The tool will make all the necessary configurations for the agent to be able to manage sentinel reporting.

 

 

Add the sentinel report log definition in FNMEA

If it does not exist already you will need to add the report log definition for sentinel so that FNMEA can manage transformed report file coming from the agent that we’ve configured in the previous steps. The report log definition maps the field in the sentinel usage log to the FNMEA report log format.

If you do not have any FNMEA login then please contact the technical person responsible for the implementation of FNMEA within your organization.

Log into FNMEA and go to Report -> Report Log Definitions

If you cannot find a definition for Sentinel, click Add Report Log Definition

reportLogDef.png

Then enter the following information as pictured below. It must be an exact match

reportLogDefFilled.png

Once done click save and you are now ready to add the license server

 

Configuring the license server in FNMEA

The last step is to configure the license server in FNMEA. For that you will need to create a third-party license server through a template.

To add the third-party license server, log into FNMEA

If you do not have any FNMEA login then please contact the technical person responsible for the implementation of FNMEA within your organization.

You will first need to create create third party template that will be used by all sentinel servers. A template is going to be a basic block for the license server configuration

Once logged into FNMEA Go to:

Servers ->Third party license server -> Third-Party Licensing Templates

Enter the information below

 

ThirdParty_template.png

The template will define default settings for

  • Starting
  • Stopping
  • Updating
  • Log rotation

for the license server as described below. 

Function Description
License Server Start Instruction to start the license server
License Server Stop Instruction to stop the license server
Update License Server Status Instruction to update the license server status. In the case of sentinel, this is done through a file called sentinel_usage.bat generated by the FNMLC and located on the agent root directory
Rotate Report Log Instruction to rotate the report log. In the case of sentinel this is usually pointing to the BIN folder of the converter root.

 

The start and stop functions are optional but we recommend to set at least the update status and report log rotation.

You need to o this once. You are now ready to add the Sentinel license server

Go to:

Servers ->Third party license server -> Third party license server summary

thirdPartyTemplate_1.png

Then click on New Third-Party License Server

thirdPartyTemplate_2.png

Then select the Sentinel template and click “Copy from template

thirdPartyTemplate_3.png

Setting Description
License Server Name This is an arbitrary name you can give to this license server
Licensing Template The name of the template selected. In this case the Sentinel one
Agent Select the pre configured agent
Time Zone time zone of the license server
License Server Start Instruction to start the license server. It could point to a file called lservnt.exe that is usually located in the default folder specified in the template. If you cannot find it there, then make a search on your machine and update the path accordingly. You can also use the Windows commands: net start “service name”  or the equivalent Linux commands
License Server Stop Instruction to stop the license server. It could point to a file called lservnt.exe that is usually located in the default folder specified in the template. If you cannot find it there, then make a search on your machine and update the path accordingly. You can also use the Windows commands: net stop “service name” or the equivalent Linux commands
Update License Server Status

Point to the file sentinel_usage.bat. This file is generated by FNMLC and is stored on the agent root installation

Rotate Report Log

Specify the bin folder where the agent will take the executable. This is based on the Converter root folder that you’ve chosen during the configuration of FNMLC

   
   

 

set the update status interval to a value that suits you. We usually set it to 10 minutes. You will also need to set a report log rotation schedule. Usually this should happen early morning or late evening.

Once you are done, you can then click on “Save” and wait for the license server to become green

thirdPartyTemplate_4.png

Once it is green you are done with the configuration. The following day you should see a report log file coming into the FNMEA reporting database by going into the following location

Reporting -> Report Log Summary

thirdPartyTemplate_5.png

You should see a report log file with the name of your license server

 thirdPartyTemplate_6.png

If you do not see the report log file, please consult the agent log file and converter log file for more information.

In this article you've learned how to implement a Sentinel license server using FNMLC.

The latest version of FNMLC can be found here.

 

 

 

(5) Comments
devi_g
By
Level 3

Hi, Is there similar documentation available to configure RLM/Reprise license server?

JohnSorensenDK
By Moderator Moderator
Moderator

@devi_g 

Did you check License server configuration automation using FNMEA License Configurator (FNMLC) ?

If you're running into specific issues integrating with RLM/Reprise license servers you may want to initiate another community thread, or create a support case...

Thanks,

John Sorensen

afilla
By
Level 6

It would be very nice if Flexera published Sentinel and Reprise Log Converters and released those alongside FNMEA upgrades. This FNMLC is a big help - but the actual converters being supported would help close the gap with other products. It does appear that Reprise and some other License Manager converters are laid on the system after install. Excited to give this a test and see how well it works for Sentinel and Reprise!

Paul_Diop
By Level 5 Flexeran
Level 5 Flexeran

Hi @devi_g 

The RLM article is coming shortly. The function is already available it is not documented yet. Current plan is to release it this month.  

Paul_Diop
By Level 5 Flexeran
Level 5 Flexeran

Hello @afilla 

This is definitely part of the near future plans.