If Nimbix hosts your license server, then at some point you'll probably want to query it to see what licenses are available and what licenses are in use. In this article, I will walk you through the steps to be able to do just that.
Note: The tutorial below is only for querying the license server. These steps are not necessary if you're only trying to check out licenses to run jobs.
Nimbix allows you to check out licenses from your local computer by assigning it an external address. To query the license server from your local computer, you'll need to add that address to your /etc/hosts file with 2 separate line entries.
- First you'll need to open the /etc/hosts file. If you're on Windows, click on the Windows button, search for "Notepad" and right click on it to run as administrator:
- Once Notepad is opened, you'll want to open the /etc/hosts file. By default this is located at:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
- Now that you have the /etc/hosts file opened, it's time to make the two entries needed to query the license server.
For example, if your license server is l12345.lic.nimbix.net and your external IP is 12.34.56.78 the two /etc/hosts entries will look like this:
l12345 12.34.56.78
l12345.lic.nimbix.net 12.34.56.78
So in the first entry you just have the hostname and the IP. In the second entry, it will be the full address and the IP.
Note: If you are trying to query the license server while running a Nimbix job, you'll have to add the /etc/hosts entries each time you start a new job since the job environment is ephemeral.
- Once you've put these two entries in your /etc/hosts file, save it.
- Next, you will need to allow ports through your firewall if they are not already allowed. Several customers don't have to make changes for this, but if you made the above change and it's still not working, you'll need to speak with your firewall team to open the ports that are needed to reach the license server. If you not sure what ports need to be opened, please reach out to support@nimbix.net and we can tell you. This is dependent on what application you're running.
Here are some of the most common ports needed:
Ansys License Server: 1055, 2325, 2326
STARCCM License Server: 1999, 2099
Nimbix won't be able to help you open these ports as they will need to be opened by your firewall team.
Once these changes are in place, you should be able to query the license server. If you're using linux, then you can navigate to the linx64 directory and run the lmstat command.
cd /ansys_inc/shared_files/licensing/linx64
./lmstat -a -c 1055@l12345
If you're on Windows and using the Ansys License Management Center, then just click on "View Current License Usage" and it should populate (as shown below).
The image above shows that there are 0 of 2 licenses in use for Ansys Mechanical Enterprise.
If you have any other questions, please reach out to us at support@nimbix.net and we'll be happy to help.