Algor 2011 and AVG 2011 - Firewall Issues

[bkingwill]

Anyone using AVG 2011 and have problems with the FlexLM Licence with the Firewall? One should beable to whitelist it, but so far the only way I can let another PC access or borrow a licence off my PC (the server) is by diabling the AVG 2011 Firewall altogether.

Also what is the actual file / process to whitelist, if trying to do it manually?

[jjs-autodesk]

Hi,

I can't comment on the specifics of configuring your firewall, but in general whitelisting a FLEXlm server involves 2 things:

1. Locking down two ports used by the FLEXlm license service.
2. Whitelisting those two ports on the firewall.

FLEXlm's documentation is your authoritative source for locking down the ports used by the "lmgrd.exe" server and "adskflex" vendor daemon.  You should check there first.  But here is what I remember from the past.  Again, FLEXlm's documentation is the final authority on this, not me.

On your license server you should have a file containing your Autodesk license.  This might be called something like "licpath.lic" or something else; the naming is somewhat under your control.  Before you begin, back up this file in case you have to make changes to it.  If you change something you aren't supposed to, you can break the license file.

This license file can be edited in Notepad.exe.  Near the top, there should be a line beginning with "SERVER" looking like:

SERVER <hostname> <hostid>

or

SERVER <hostname> <hostid> <portnumber>

If it looks like the first, you need to add an unused network port number to the end.  By default if none is specified, I think that FLEXlm assigns a unused port number in the range 27000-27010.  So try something like 27000 (assuming that port is free).  This is the first port number for whitelisting.  DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE ON THIS LINE -- put the port number after the hostid number, separated from the hostid number by a space.  If you change anything else on the line, you can break your license file!  (Restore it from that backup copy if you do.)

If your SERVER line looks like the second, the port number shown is your first number for whitelisting.

Below your SERVER line, there should be a line that looks like this:

VENDOR adskflex

or

VENDOR adskflex port=<portnumber>

If it looks like the first, you need to add a network port number after "adskflex" in the form "port=<portnumber>".  This number must be different from the one assigned on the SERVER line and again must be unused.  This is the second port number for whitelisting.  (By default, if nothing is explicitly set this number seems random.)

If your VENDOR line looks like the second, the port number shown in the "port=" part is your second number for whitelisting.

If you had to make any changes to your license file, assigning port numbers, then I think you need to stop and restart your license server (I don't know if a "reread" is sufficient in this case).  See FLEXlm documentation for details about this, but you should probably be able to do it using their UI app "lmtools.exe" or from the command line using "lmutil.exe".

Now that this is done, you should be able to configure your license server's firewall to whitelist those two port numbers.

One final note:  if you did have to set up an explicit port number on the SERVER line, it might be necessary to update your individual client installations' LICPATH.LIC files.  For instance, in Autodesk Simulation's install folder you will find a short LICPATH.LIC file for network licensing.  Typically, this has a "short" format like:

SERVER <hostname> 000000000000

USE_SERVER

If it looks like the above without a port number listed, add the same port number to the end fo the SERVER line (after all the 0's) just like you did for the license server's file.  If the port number added for the license server was in the default FLEXlm range of 27000-27010, this change may not be necessary.

HTH

Joel Schultz
Principal Engineer
MFG-Digital Simulation