Installation & Licensing

[#1]

Hi,

I'm running a NLM on a Win2008r2 server for 3DS Max licensing. All works fine on the LAN, clients connect and pick up licenses.
I've set up the server to do VPN as well, when I make a VPN connection the NLM stops working and a status enquiry returns:

"adskflex: Cannot read data from license server system.
The license server system appears to be running, but is not
responding. If this persists, notify the System Administrator.
(The license server manager (lmgrd) and vendor daemon processes
should be terminated and restarted.)"

When the service is restarted I get:

"The license server manager (lmgrd) has not been started yet,
the wrong port@host or license file is being used, or the
port or hostname in the license file has been changed.
Server name: 192.168.0.123
License path: 27000@ServerName;
FLEXnet Licensing error:-15,10. System Error: 10061 "WinSock: Connection refused"

It seems that the IP address assigned to the Server for the PPP dial in adapter is over-riding the IP address in the license file. I've put an entry in the hosts file for the IP address and set firewall rules - but no joy. My only way out of this is to reboot the server and not make any new VPN connections.

Any ideas on how to overcome this?

Mark

[#2]

Make sure you can PING the server over the VPN and get the valid IP address.  Your hosts should resolve any DNS issue, as you have stated.  So long as firewall is not blocking 27000 and 2080, you should be able to connect.  You can verify with Internet Explorer by pointing to:

http://servername:27000

http://servername:2080

Each should display a jargon page.

Once verified, you likely need to add a system environment variable to the client to overcome the latency of the VPN connection.  Start by setting the FLEXLM_TIMEOUT to 1000000 and increase from there until connectivity is made. 

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=7574782&linkID=9240617

[#3]

Thanks for picking this up Travis.
Ping is fine - like you say the hosts file takes care of that.

But I still get the: "FLEXnet Licensing error:-15,10.  System Error: 10061 "WinSock: Connection refused" "

And although the server name is right in the license path the ip address is the RAS adapter rather than the physical adapter.:

Server name: 192.168.0.123 (Should be 192.168.0.6)
License path: 27000@ServerName;

I can access port 27000 fine but 2080 times out and goes to page not found.

I've double checked firewall rules and port forwarding on the router; inbound and outbound tcp rules should be letting all programs use 2080 for all adapters and port forwarding is sending 2080 to the server. 
I thought 2080 was an Autodesk registered port so nothing else should be using it.

I've just rebooted the server - no change...

I'll be sure to set the timeout if I get this working over VPN!

Thanks again.

Mark

[#4]

Okay, that is actually good news that 27000 is working.  That means the NLM is working.  The problem is likely that your version of adskflex.exe is being problematic on Server 2008 R2 (or similar.)

What you should try is replacing the adskflex.exe with an older version that is known to work better.  On newer servers, I have found that v11.7 works the best when faced with this issue.

I have provided that fix here:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Installation-Licensing/FLEXnet-Licensing-error-15-quot-WinSock-Operati...

[#5]

Thanks Travis.

I have reinstalled and changed the version of adsflex. Everything works fine on the local network - I can see that ports 27000 and 2080 are absolutely fine and the server is issuing licenses and the Host IP address in System settings is 192.168.0.6 as it should be.

As soon as I make a VPN connection from a remote PC, before I even request a license It all stops working, port 2080 becomes unresponsive and the Host ID changes to 192.168.0.123 - which is the RAS adapter. If I then perform a status enquiry I get the -15,10 error - "Winsock: Connection refused".

Unless you have any other ideas I might need to run the NLS elswhere...

Thanks,

Mark

[#6]

Are you unable to connect via the other valid IP address either by hosts, DNS, or environment variable?

[#7]

I can connect to the server, locally and remotely once a VPN connection is in place. It's just the NLM that picks up the IPaddress of the RAS adapter and therefore thinks that the lic file is invalid and stops the adskflex working. Strange though as the MAC address are the same in system settings it's just the IP address that changes.

I'm trying to get hold of a new lic file so I can run NLM on a different machine so I can avoid using the VPN server completely.

[#8]

The IP address is irrelevant to the NLM's working so there is definitely some strangeness going on here.  When you are on VPN, can you check the port 2080 via the correct IP address from Internet Explorer?

http://192.168.0.6:2080

[#9]

Strangeness indeed!
No, that times out if I try to hook up to port 2080 on the correct IP adresss - but I see your thinking. It's as if as soon as the VPN connection is made the ip address that ADSKFLEX is looking to gets changed, when it hits the new IP it invalidates the lic file and stops responding.

[#10]

That is so weird.  The service should already be running on that server regardless of how you connect to it.  And I can't imagine it being partitioned so that it cannot see the MAC of the other NIC.  I'll have to say, I've never heard of anything like you're describing in all the years that I have been supporting the NLM.