Yes , lmadmin i.e the UI based license server can operate on both http and https as well .
Please refer to section "lmadmin Command-line Arguments" and set the argument -webSecurePort <httpsPort> , Configures the TCP/IP port (five characters maximum) that the lmadmin web server uses to listen for HTTPS (HTTP-over-SSL) communication. If you change the port, you must stop and restart the license server. You can also set this from the UI ,Set from UI—Specify for HTTPS Port (located under the Secure Web Server Configuration heading on the Server Configuration tab on the Administration page).
On platforms other than Windows, the default is to use HTTP rather than HTTPS. To use HTTPS and add security to the transactions, you must purchase and install an SSL certificate .
In terms of FlexNet Publisher , Yes it is used only in lmadmin .
But If you are talking about using SOAP for connections to the activation server then the SOAP implementation used by FlexNet Licensing uses OpenSSL on all platforms except Windows. On Windows platforms WinINet is used for SSL and this function is therefore not required on Windows.On platforms other than Windows, the default is to use HTTP rather than HTTPS. To use HTTPS and add security to the transactions, you must purchase and install an SSL certificate. A client certificate may be required on the machine where the activation utility is running. This is required only when an SSL implementation that requires a client certificate is used on the Operations server. Then the details of this certificate are set up using this function.For further information, see the Operations server documentation, specifically the FlexNet Operations Implementation Guide as it describes how to configure it for SSL.
