Managing the adskflex.opt Options File

[TravisNave]

Issue:  You want to configure different licensing options for different user groups and networked licensed products using your Autodesk Network License Manager.

Solution: There is a way to manually configure the Autodesk Network License Manager to use different configurations for each license type, user, group, etc.  You need to create an Options file as instructed in the License Administration Guide.  Your options file should be created in a plain text editor like Notepad and must be named adskflex.opt.  Please ensure that file extensions are enabled so that you do not have a hidden .txt file extension appended to your filename.  Furthermore, the adskflex.opt options file must be saved in the same location as your Autodesk .lic license file.  To activate the options file, you need to reread the license from the Start/Stop/Reread tab of LMTOOLS.  You can then use your debug.log file to verify that the options are working properly.

Additional information about the adskflex.opt Options File can be found here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=7459915&linkID=9240617

Creating and Implementing the adskflex.opt Options File

1.  To create an options file, simply open a plain text editor like Notepad and type the options that you wish to implement.

2.  Make sure you then save the file as adskflex.opt and in the same location as your Autodesk *.lic file.  You will want to pull down the save type box to all files so that it will not save with a .txt extension.  Make sure file extensions are enabled to determine if a .txt has been appended. If so, simply rename the file as appropriate. 

3.  Open LMTOOLS and go to the Start/Stop/Reread tab and choose ReRead License File.  This will enable the options file that you just saved. 

4.  You can verify that the options file is active by viewing the debug.log file.  You can do this from the Config Services tab in LMTOOLS by clicking View Log... or by opening the debug.log file in Notepad from the path specified on the Config Services tab.  You should see log entries for each successful option that you created.  Entries should look similar to the following:

16:52:45 (adskflex) Using options file: "C:\Program Files\Autodesk Network License Manager\License\adskflex.opt"
16:52:45 (adskflex) ALL FEATURES: INACTIVITY TIMEOUT set to 900 seconds
16:52:45 (adskflex) Max borrow interval for feature, 64300ACD_F , set to 48 hours
16:52:45 (adskflex) RESERVING 1 64300ACD_F  license for USER_GROUP Admins
16:52:45 (adskflex) MAX 1 USER_GROUP Users for 64300ACD_F
16:52:45 (adskflex) INCLUDE USER_GROUP Admins 64300ACD_F
16:52:45 (adskflex) Report log started (+C:\Program Files\Autodesk Network License Manager\report.rl).

You can use the adskflex.opt options file to split licenses into different groups, reserve licenses for power users, or limit the amount and time licenses can be borrowed.  For details on each available option, please see the License Administration Guide in the documentation of your Autodesk Network License Manager or from the Autodesk KB link provided above. 

Feature codes for each of your licensed products can be found within the PACKAGE and INCREMENT lines of the .lic license file provided by Autodesk.  A list of Autodesk 2012 feature codes can be found here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17288427&linkID=9243099

For your convenience I am attaching a ready-made adskflex.opt options file that includes all of the available compatible options for the Autodesk Network License Manager along with commented descriptions and examples. You can use this file as a starting point to create your own customizations.  Please unzip the file and edit with Notepad. 

Good Luck!

[DRW_CAD]

Step by step:

I set up an options file to reserve an AEC license for a user who needed Architecture and Civil 3D users were grabbing the AECs when there was still Infrastructure Design Suites available. 

I could see from the log that it wasn't reading the Options file so I googled, found this thread and used syntax from here and another thread to get an options file that appears to be working. Log file attached above.

I then stopped the service for 15 minutes or so. Restarted so there were 0 users on it and told CHERNDON to try his Architecture. It worked but there was nobody using those licenses at the time.

But I reserved him as part of a group with two people in it and so I expected it to only allow two more users and hold back one of the two that were reserved for the group. 

[TravisNave]

@Mark.Lancaster,

For clarity it should read, Only licenses that are reserved are not available to other users. 

But RESERVE isn't always cut and dry.  Why?  If you have 4 licenses and you RESERVE 2, then you still have two licenses available to anyone else.  I can also reserve just 2 licenses to a group of 4 people.  In theory I can reserve 5 licenses of 4 seats and just fill my debug log with -4 codes, but I digress.  To deny usage completely, you'd want to use INCLUDE instead.  That way licenses would be freed up, but only available to a group of people allowed to use it. 

What I am confused about is what the customer actually wants to happen.  I'd like a complete step-by-step scenario of what is going on and then this will be easier to resolve. 

[DRW_CAD]

What I want is:

1. Create a group of users
2. And then reserve licenses that can only be used by that group. 

What I have is 70 Infrastructure suites, 7 building suites & 4 AEC Collections. 

Then I have a bunch of Civil Engineers, a bunch of AutoCAD drafters and 9 Structural Engineers who need to have full Revit and Architecture. 

We went for a long time with just Civil Engineers using IDS and Structural using BDS but we then got a large contract that required straight AutoCAD drafters and when I started putting AutoCAD out there, I soon discovered that they could pull a license from either suite regardless of serial number (previously, we didn't use any products that were in both suites)

I've managed to reserve the BDS for the 7 structural engineers through RESERVE in options. 

But now, with the AECs, I need to make it to where the 9 structural engineers can use full Revit or Arch when they need it and Civil/AutoCAD users are grabbing the AECs first when there are other licenses available, since they're term I've learned, regardless, I need them to be available to only members of the structural group. 

[Mark.Lancaster]

@TravisNave

Sorry...    When I replied I wasn't really thinking about you coming in after the conversation had started and you didn't know the actual details..  So with me knowing ahead of time where @DRW_CAD had reserved 2 collection license out of his 4 and since..

1.  2 collection license had already been consumed by other users.

2.  1 collection license had been consumed by one of the reserved/assigned users

3.  A fourth license was also issued to another user not part of the reserved group.  Meaning they should've been denied.

That's why I was confused when you said that..  My bad.. 

[TravisNave]

It may be easier to eliminate access to certain licenses altogether than try to reserve them for specific people. 

Of all of your license, are there any groups that absolutely shouldn't have access to particular suites at all, ever? 

Maybe a chart would be helpful. 

RESERVE is never my first choice when trying to keep people from using a license.  RESERVE should only be... well... reserved to ensure that a particular user can always launch a product no matter what -- not to keep somebody else from launching a product. 

[DRW_CAD]

The only group that shouldn't have access to licenses would be everyone except those in the group I want the licenses available for. 

The reason is that I have way more AutoCAD users than I have AutoCAD licenses so a lot of them pull from the design suites that aren't being used at the moment. But since Full Revit & Arch are only in BDS and AEC and I have 7 BDS and 4 AEC and 9 users needing REVIT/ARCH. I'm trying to make 2 of the 4 AEC available to only the two users that are not already allotted a BDS license. 

[DRW_CAD]

Well, I accomplished what I needed to by using INCLUDE in place of RESERVE. The only downside is it doesn't appear that you can specify a count of total licenses available with INCLUDE like you can with RESERVE. I can manage that by splitting the AECs on different LMs. 

But RESERVE is counter intuitive to say the least. 

The documentation describes INCLUDE and RESERVE as:

RESERVE

Reserve a specific count of licenses to help ensure there are product licenses available when needed. licenses that are reserved are not available to other users.

INCLUDE
Provide access to specific licenses. Any users, hosts or IP addresses not explicitly included will not have access to the specified licenses.

It sounds like the same thing described differently but RESERVEd licenses are available to other users. Which leads me to ask: What does RESERVE do? 

Rhetorical question but interestingly, I've been using RESERVE in my Options file for my BDS licenses to keep AutoCAD users from accessing them and it's worked, it just didn't work on the AEC licenses. 

Looking back at your last post: "RESERVE is never my first choice when trying to keep people from using a license. RESERVE should only be... well... reserved to ensure that a particular user can always launch a product no matter what -- not to keep somebody else from launching a product."

That is what I'm trying to do, i.e. ensure that a particular user can always launch a product no matter what. But that's not happening for me with the AEC license. Other users are accessing the available licenses when there are other licenses available, i.e. they wouldn't be denied. And then the user who the license is reserved for can't launch the product, in this case Architecture because Civil users have taken all the AEC licenses for Civil 3D when there are IDS licenses not being used. 

[TravisNave]

---

@DRW_CAD wrote:

It sounds like the same thing described differently but RESERVEd licenses are available to other users. Which leads me to ask: What does RESERVE do? 

---

I guess the easiest explanation I can come up with is that INCLUDE ensures that only a specific group of users are allowed to use a set of available licenses, whereas RESERVE ensures that a particular user is always afforded a license so that they never get a -4 error "out of licenses."

Glad you have a working solution of sorts.  It is sometimes difficult to get 100% what you want because the options don't seem to have a lot of... um... options. 

[DRW_CAD]

Now... if I can just figure out my health insurance. 

[Anonymous]

Hello TravisNave. 

 My name is Diego and I was following your topic on Option File. I would like your support for my options file.

"I have options file, which have 3 licenses (one license has 10 positions / one license has 1 position / one license has 14 positions).
For each license a hostname group of computers. I realize that no computer obeys the option file rule. Here is an example:

# Defines a EngineeringDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept L87390-2K1 L10253-2K1 L18634-2K1 
HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept L87358-2K1 L93236-2K1 L15122-2K1
HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept L93178-2K1 L10255-2K1 L13791-2K1
HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept L18101-2K1 L19711-2K1 L18320-2K1
Include 64300ACD_T_F Group EngineeringDept
RESERVE 4 64300ACD_T_F HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept 
MAX 4 64300ACD_T_F HOST_GROUP EngineeringDept

# Defines a InovationDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L36183-2K1 F08064-2K1 L26336-2K1 
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L01728-2K1 L26439-2K1 L18051-2K2 
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L20495-2K4 L55492-2K2 L31250-2K1 
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L32042-2K1 L30021-2K6 L30610-2K1 
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L30530-2K1 L08308-2K1 L18871-2K1 
HOST_GROUP InovationDept L05378-2K2
RESERVE 10 64300ACD_T_F HOST_GROUP InovationDept 
MAX 10 64300ACD_T_F HOST_GROUP InovationDept

#Defines one licence to Davison
RESERVE 1 86830ACD_2018_0F HOST L18573-2k1

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

First wrong syntax...   Use this syntax instead.

[TravisNave]

@Anonymous,

There are two problems associated with your Options file.

1.  Make sure that you have file extensions turned on in Windows Explorer and ensure that your filename is adskflex.opt and not adskflex.opt.txt.

2.  Your options file must absolutely, positively include the line:

GROUPCASEINSENSITIVE ON

Save the file in the same location as the Autodesk license file then reread the license file in LMTOOLS.  Verify with the debug.log file that the options file is being read in. 

Let me know the results.

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

@Mark.Lancaster

 Thanks. I'll test now with this change

[Anonymous]

@TravisNave and @Mark.Lancaster,

 My other doubt, as we are sure that the licenses are in use by the right people, that is, an effective monitoring of the licenses.
I need know if this licenses are being used by the right machines.

[Anonymous]

Hello @Mark.Lancaster.

 Is this syntax correct now?

# Disables case sensitivity when defining groups/host_groups
   GROUPCASEINSENSITIVE ON

# Defines a EngineeringDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
 GROUP EngineeringDept L87390-2K1 L10253-2K1 L18634-2K1    
 GROUP EngineeringDept L87358-2K1 L93236-2K1 L15122-2K1
 GROUP EngineeringDept L93178-2K1 L10255-2K1 L13791-2K1
 GROUP EngineeringDept L18101-2K1 L19711-2K1 L18320-2K1

 Include 64300ACD_T_F Group EngineeringDept

 MAX 4 64300ACD_T_F GROUP EngineeringDept

 RESERVE 4 64300ACD_T_F:SIGN="125A 70FB CA6D 0F57 0B7C \
 6BFA C6BA 19E3 A09B 9D22 34B9 57FE 569D BA31 91F9 1EB5 30B3 \
 22DE 48E3 1159 3E67 04C1 4CBD 6053 EF86 BB37 A86C 22F2 B7D8 \
 693E" GROUP EngineeringDept 
 

# Defines a InovationDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
 GROUP InovationDept L36183-2K1 F08064-2K1 L26336-2K1
 GROUP InovationDept L01728-2K1 L26439-2K1 L18051-2K2
 GROUP InovationDept L20495-2K4 L55492-2K2 L31250-2K1
 GROUP InovationDept L32042-2K1 L30021-2K6 L30610-2K1
 GROUP InovationDept L30530-2K1 L08308-2K1 L18871-2K1
 GROUP InovationDept L05378-2K2
 MAX 10 64300ACD_T_F GROUP InovationDept
 RESERVE 10 64300ACD_T_F:SIGN="132E 5522 97A6 F4FC C6F6 \
 799A CC6D 0E07 7D33 D03A 5759 ED04 69AC 5878 6864 1C36 9DAA \
 DA9C AC1F 2EC9 CBEA CD5B 4C52 39AD C312 A153 5F88 813A BA59 \
 DAB7" GROUP InovationDept

#Defines one licence to Davison
RESERVE 1 86830ACD_2018_0F HOST L18573-2k1

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Why are creating the same group over and over?

 GROUP EngineeringDept L87390-2K1 L10253-2K1 L18634-2K1    
 GROUP EngineeringDept L87358-2K1 L93236-2K1 L15122-2K1
 GROUP EngineeringDept L93178-2K1 L10255-2K1 L13791-2K1
 GROUP EngineeringDept L18101-2K1 L19711-2K1 L18320-2K1

List all the information in a single line.  The max and the include lines should also have the same syntax as your reserve.

[Anonymous]

Hi @Mark.Lancaster.

Is this correct?

 # Disables case sensitivity when defining groups/host_groups
   GROUPCASEINSENSITIVE ON

# Defines a EngineeringDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
 GROUP EngineeringDept L18101-2K1 L19711-2K1 L18320-2K1 L93178-2K1 L10255-2K1 L13791-2K1 L87390-2K1 L10253-2K1 L18634-2K1 L87358-   2K1 L93236-2K1 L15122-2K1
 Include 64300ACD_T_F Group EngineeringDept
 RESERVE 4 64300ACD_T_F:SIGN="125A 70FB CA6D 0F57 0B7C \
 6BFA C6BA 19E3 A09B 9D22 34B9 57FE 569D BA31 91F9 1EB5 30B3 \
 22DE 48E3 1159 3E67 04C1 4CBD 6053 EF86 BB37 A86C 22F2 B7D8 \
 693E" GROUP EngineeringDept
 

# Defines a InovationDept group by computer name and controls their license usage
 GROUP InovationDept L05378-2K2 L30530-2K1 L08308-2K1 L18871-2K1 L32042-2K1 L30021-2K6 L30610-2K1 L20495-2K4 L55492-2K2 L31250-2K1 L01728-2K1 L26439-2K1 L18051-2K2 L36183-2K1 F08064-2K1 L26336-2K1
 RESERVE 10 64300ACD_T_F:SIGN="132E 5522 97A6 F4FC C6F6 \
 799A CC6D 0E07 7D33 D03A 5759 ED04 69AC 5878 6864 1C36 9DAA \
 DA9C AC1F 2EC9 CBEA CD5B 4C52 39AD C312 A153 5F88 813A BA59 \
 DAB7" GROUP InovationDept

#Defines one licence to Davison Angelo
RESERVE 1 64300ACD_F HOST L18573-2k1

[TravisNave]

That appears to look pretty good to me.  Make sure when you save it, it doesn't have a .txt hidden extension in Notepad and then reread the license file.  The debug log should verify that it is reading it in and reserving seats.  Keep us posted.

[Anonymous]

I need help with reserving licenses. I want to reserve some for particular users but it just doesnt work at all!

Look.

GROUPCASEINSENSITIVE ON
GROUP Civil soverchenkomd vasiukovmm petrovas Seleznevaa KORMNOVAER ivanovda KaradzhayanRA ShemyakinAS ChuchkalovaAV soninarv karmilinami GorenkoSV KashirskayaAE

RESERVE 13 86718CIV3D_2017_0F GROUP Civil

I reserve 13 licenses for these users to use Civil 3D and what do I get? Users from the group borrow NEW civil licenses and reserved licenses remain... reserved, huh? Why this happens?

Users of 86718CIV3D_2017_0F:  (Total of 53 licenses issued;  Total of 18 licenses in use)

  "86718CIV3D_2017_0F" v1.000, vendor: adskflex, expiry: 28-feb-2019
  floating license

    soverchenkomd E-70-0889 E-70-0889 (v1.0) (vpp-lic09/27000 301), start Mon 11/20 16:52  (linger: 13502060 / 13508760)
    vasiukovmm E-70-0275 E-70-0275 (v1.0) (vpp-lic09/27000 801), start Mon 11/20 16:53
    KORMNOVAER C-10-2042 C-10-2042 (v1.0) (vpp-lic09/27000 7601), start Mon 11/20 16:53
    ivanovda E-70-0582 E-70-0582 (v1.0) (vpp-lic09/27000 8201), start Mon 11/20 16:53
    ShemyakinAS E-70-0007 E-70-0007 (v1.0) (vpp-lic09/27000 10601), start Mon 11/20 16:53
	13 RESERVATIONs for GROUP Civil (vpp-lic09/27000)

4 of 5 listed users have their licenses reserved, but guess what? They don't like those reserved licenses and borrow new ones, making license number 18 instead of 14. 

This Civil license belongs to AECCOL which is on the same lic file. I've tried to reserve whole AECCOL for them. But result is the same.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Please don't multi-post https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/installation-licensing/license-reservation-not-working/m-p/7558951/highlight/false#M193806 about the same thing.  Post once and we the user will help you..