Advanced Server for OpenVMS

Updated: 24 May 2001

Guide to Managing Advanced Server Licenses

Order Number: AA--R6G2B--TE

January 1999

This guide describes the types of Advanced Server licenses, license management software, and how to configure your system as a license server.

Revision/Update Information: This guide supersedes the PATHWORKS for OpenVMS (Advanced Server) Guide to Managing PATHWORKS Licenses, order number AA--R6G2A--TE.

Operating System Versions: OpenVMS Alpha, Version 7.2
OpenVMS VAX, Version 7.2
OpenVMS Alpha, Version 7.1
OpenVMS VAX Version 7.1

Software Versions: Advanced Server V7.2 for OpenVMS
PATHWORKS V6 for OpenVMS (Advanced Server)

Compaq Computer Corporation
Houston, Texas

First Published, June 1995
Revised, August 1997 Revised, January 1999

Compaq Computer Corporation makes no representations that the use of its products in the manner described in this publication will not infringe on existing or future patent rights, nor do the descriptions contained in this publication imply the granting of licenses to make, use, or sell equipment or software in accordance with the description.

Possession, use, or copying of the software described in this publication is authorized only pursuant to a valid written license from Compaq or an authorized sublicensor.

Compaq conducts its business in a manner that conserves the environment and protects the safety and health of its employees, customers, and the community.

The following are trademarks of Compaq Computer Corporation:

Alpha, Compaq, DECdirect, DECnet-Plus, DECprint, DIGITAL, OpenVMS, PATHWORKS, VAX, VAX DOCUMENT, VAXcluster, VMS, and the Compaq logo.

The following are third-party trademarks:

AT&T is a registered trademark of American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Apple, AppleShare, LaserWriter, Macintosh, and TRUETYPE are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
DEC Rdb is a trademark of Oracle Corporation.
Hewlett-Packard, HP, LaserJet, and PCL are registered trademarks of Hewlett-Packard Company.
IBM and OS/2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
Microsoft, MS-DOS, and Windows are registered trademarks, and Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
MultiNet and TCPWARE are registered trademarks of Process Software Corporation.
NetBIOS is a trademark of Micro Computer Systems, Inc.
Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

ZK6554

The Advanced Server for OpenVMS documentation set is available on CD-ROM.

This document was prepared using VAX DOCUMENT, Version V3.2n.

Contents Index

Preface

This guide describes:

Types of Advanced Server licenses.
Step-by-step instructions for using the Advanced Server license management software.
How to use the Advanced Server License Manager.
How to troubleshoot licensing problems.

This guide contains information about licensing requirements for both PATHWORKS V6 for OpenVMS (Advanced Server) and Advanced Server V7.2 for OpenVMS. The term "Advanced Server license" applies to the license required to access the specific version of the file server.

About This Guide

This guide is written for system administrators who need to:

Gain a basic understanding of Advanced Server licensing concepts.
Ensure that valid clients receive licenses.
Manage licenses.
Solve and eliminate license management problems.

This guide assumes you are familiar with basic license management software provided with the OpenVMS operating system.

Organization of This Guide

This guide contains the following sections:

Chapter Description

Chapter 1 Provides an overview of the license server software and the license management tasks you perform.

Chapter 2 Describes how you configure and manage the license server software in your network environment.

Chapter 3 Describes how to configure the license server software components on OpenVMS systems.

Chapter 4 Describes how to use the License Manager.

Chapter 5 Describes how to configure client software when it is used with the license server.

Appendix A Lists and describes the messages that are generated in response to client events.

Appendix B Lists and describes the messages that are generated in response to server events.

Appendix C Describes the specific steps in the client licensing process and shows the algorithms used to determine what license to request.

Reader's Comments

Compaq welcomes your comments on this manual.

Print or edit the online form SYS$HELP:OPENVMSDOC_COMMENTS.TXT and send us your comments by:

Internet openvmsdoc@zko.mts.dec.com

Fax 603-884-0120, Attention: OSSG Documentation, ZKO3-4/U08

Mail Compaq Computer Corporation
OSSG Documentation Group, ZKO3-4/U08
110 Spit Brook Rd.
Nashua, NH 03062-2698

How To Order Additional Documentation

Use the following World Wide Web address to order additional documentation:

http://www.openvms.digital.com:81/

If you need help deciding which documentation best meets your needs, call 800-DIGITAL (800-344-4825).

Conventions

The following conventions are used in the Advanced Server documentation set:

Convention Meaning

Advanced Server Advanced Server refers to the PATHWORKS for OpenVMS (Advanced Server) as well as Advanced Server for OpenVMS file server.

[Ctrl/] x While you hold down the Ctrl key, press another key or a pointing device button.

Italic Indicates a place holder for information or parameters that you must provide. For example, if the procedure asks you to type file-name, you must type the actual name of a file.
Italics also indicate path names, new terms, and the titles of other documents.

monospace Indicates the actual commands, words, or characters that you type in a dialog box or at a command prompt or system output.

Note: Provides information of special importance.

Caution: Provides information to avoid damaging the software or hardware.

Warning: Provides information that is essential to people's safety.

/ A forward slash in command descriptions indicates that a command qualifier follows.

... A horizontal ellipsis following an entry in a command line indicates that the entry or a similar entry can be repeated any number of times. An ellipsis following a file name indicates that additional parameters, values, or information can be entered.

.
.
. A vertical ellipsis in an example indicates that not all the data is shown.

Chapter 1
How to Use Advanced Server License Software

Any client accessing an Advanced Server must be sufficiently licensed. This chapter describes how the license software works, the licenses required to access the server, and how license management works. The following topics are discussed:

Section 1.1, The Advanced Server Licensing System, describes the different components of the licensing system and describes how licensing works.
Section 1.2, License Management Models, describes the different license management approaches to providing access to the Advanced Server.
Section 1.3, License Management Tasks, describes the tasks involved in managing Advanced Server licenses and the features of the License Manager that allow you to perform these tasks.

1.1 The Advanced Server Licensing System

The Advanced Server license software on the server runs on OpenVMS and includes the following components:

License Server -- A software program that assigns and verifies client-based licenses and performs license management tasks.
License Manager---A management interface between the system administrator and the Advanced Server license server.
License Registrar---A program that runs on the same node as the file server and validates that client access to the file service is licensed. The License Registrar also manages server-based licenses.

The licensing software that runs on the client includes the following components:

Client License Requester---A program that runs on the client and requests licenses from the license server.
Client License Transponder---A program that runs on the client and communicates information about the client's license to the License Registrar.

Refer to Chapter 5, Configuring Client Software, for more information about the client licensing software.

The organization of these components is shown in Figure 1-1, Advanced Server Licensing System.

Figure 1-1 Advanced Server Licensing System

Client requests license assignment or verification.
Client requests to connect to the file server.
File server request to validate that a client is licensed for access to file server resources.
License Registrar validates client's license.

1.1.1 Advanced Server Licensing System Components

The following list summarizes how the components of the licensing system interact.

The Advanced Server license server is installed and configured on an OpenVMS system. This can be a standalone system or an OpenVMS cluster and does not necessarily have to be on the same system as the Advanced Server. The Advanced Server license server is an interface between the LMF database and the client software. It services requests for client-based licenses.
The License Registrar runs on the Advanced Server system and determines if a client is licensed to use the Advanced Server resources. The License Registrar validates client-based licenses and grants server-based licenses when they are needed and available.
For server-based licensing, Advanced Server licenses are loaded and registered on the file server system. The License Registrar also maintains information about the licenses and periodically interfaces to LMF to determine changes to licenses, such as the addition of new licenses and the removal of licenses
When unlicensed clients access the Advanced Server resources, they are granted server-based licenses by the License Registrar, if they are available. These licenses must be available to the license registrar for such server-based use ahead of time.
The License Manager:
- manages client-based licenses
- specifies which licenses will be used as client-based licenses and which will be used as server-based licenses
- organizes client-based licenses into license groups
- generates reports of licensing activities
- displays lists of clients that have been granted licenses
- revokes licenses
Clients use the client license requester (CLR) and the client license transponder (CLT) programs to request and verify licenses. The CLR program requests client-based licenses from the license server. When the license server assigns a license to the client, the client provides license information to the CLT program. Each time the client accesses Advanced Server resources, the CLT program presents this license information to the License Registrar so that the license can be validated.

For a system to be an Advanced Server license server, no special attributes are required. However, make sure that the system is configured for, and running, all of the transports used by clients requesting licenses.

A small amount of disk storage space on the server, less than 500 bytes per license managed, is also required.

Compaq Computer Corporation recommends that you use a single license server to provide client-based licenses to all clients requiring a client-based license in a local area network (LAN). There is no technical reason why you could not use a single license server per wide area network (WAN) or multiple license servers per LAN; these models are also supported. However, using a single license server per LAN, at least to start, provides a good degree of local control while keeping the administrative activity to a minimum. Also, operating too many license servers within a single LAN can result in performance degradation.

For increased availability, a license server can be run in an OpenVMS cluster. Alternatively, two or more license servers can be run, although any given PAK can only be loaded on one OpenVMS system at a time.

When registering and loading a new Advanced Server license PAK on an OpenVMS cluster, use the LICENSE REGISTER command on one node of the cluster to register the PAK and then use the LICENSE LOAD command on each cluster member to load the licenses on that cluster member. This ensures that Advanced Server license components running on any member of the cluster will be able to detect the new licenses. Failure to load the licenses on each cluster member may cause failures due to the Advanced Server licenses components' inability to detect licenses that are not loaded.

1.1.2 Configuring License Services

When you install the Advanced Server, the License Registrar is automatically installed to ensure access to the server resources is validated. The license server, however, is an optional component that is installed only if you answer YES to the appropriate prompt in the initial configuration dialog, PWRK$CONFIG, described in your Server Installation and Configuration Guide.

The license server manages client-based licenses, including assignment of licenses to clients and allocation of licenses to license groups.

If you choose not to configure the license server to run, the License Registrar takes its licenses directly from LMF (the License Management Facility) and uses them exclusively as server-based licenses. Simply load the licenses as described in the OpenVMS License Management Utility Manual.

If you choose to configure the license server, use the procedures described in this guide to allocate and manage licenses. For more information on choosing client-based versus server-based licensing, refer to Chapter 2, Setting Up License Management.

1.1.2.1 Configuring Standalone License Servers

The license server can run on a different system than the one that is running the file server (such as the Advanced Server or the PATHWORKS Advanced Server). Compaq Computer Corporation recommends this configuration for the best performance of the file server system. The system running the license server without a file server is referred to as a "standalone license server".

To configure a system to run the standalone license server, install the file server software as described in your Server Installation and Configuration Guide. During the product installation procedure, you should answer NO to the question about installing the Advanced Server, and answer YES to the question, "Do you want to install only the Advanced Server license server?" When the procedure completes, configure and start the license server as described in your Server Installation and Configuration Guide.

When you install the file server on another system in the local area network (LAN), configure the server so that the license server is not started on the same system with the file server.

For more information about license server configuration, refer to Chapter 3, Configuring License Servers.

1.1.2.2 Configuring LANs and WANs

The license server must be installed and running in the same LAN as the file server that the clients need to access, if you are using client-based license management. In a configuration with a standalone license server, client licenses are granted by the license server, and verified by the License Registrar running on the file server system. Clients on computers outside of the LAN can obtain licenses for access to the file server, if the license server is configured for wide-area network access. Refer to Section 5.3, Enabling Wide Area Networking (WAN) Operations, for more information about how to provide WAN access to the license server.

1.1.3 PATHWORKS Client Licensing Software

If the file server offers server-based licensing, and a sufficient number of server-based licenses are available, the client computer needs no special software for requesting and storing the Advanced Server license.

However, if the licenses are managed as client-based licenses, the client computer must have PATHWORKS client licensing software to request and store Advanced Server licenses.

The PATHWORKS client licensing software for licensing is automatically installed and configured as part of the PATHWORKS client software installation procedure. Therefore, if the client is running PATHWORKS 32, or PATHWORKS for Windows 95, no additional client licensing software is needed.

However, if the client computer is not running PATHWORKS client software (for example, on a retail Windows NT workstation), the PATHWORKS client licensing software components (Client License Requester and Client License Transponder) must be loaded and set up on the client computer to request and store Advanced Server client-based licenses.

These client components are available on the file server system after you install the file server software. Refer to Chapter 5, Configuring Client Software, for information about loading and customizing the client software for client-based licensing.

Note

The license server included with Advanced Server will not issue or manage PATHWORKS for OpenVMS (NetWare) licenses. If you have clients using NetWare networking software, maintain the existing version of the license server on a different system from the one that is running Advanced Server.

Contents

Index