Redundant Servers Guide for Applixware

When a large number of licenses are governed by a single license server, any failure of the server becomes a major event. To prevent problems, it may be desirable to set up redundant servers so that if one server goes down, the license manager can still function. In the redundant server configuration, three machines are designated to be license servers. All three machines must be running at the time the license managers are started. However, only two of the servers must remain operational; this is called a quorum. When a quorum exists, licenses will remain available to be checked out by clients.

The first step in configuring the license manager is choosing the servers. The servers should be chosen with these three criteria in mind: These 3 machines should have VERY reliable connectivity with each other. When selecting servers, a primary (master) server needs to be chosen. This is the machine to which clients connect first, so it gets the majority of the network traffic. The primary server is the first server listed in the license file. The servers should be running supported versions of their operating systems. Once you have chosen the servers, you need to determine the Host ID of each server. When requesting a license, you must submit all three servers' Host IDs in order for the license file to be properly generated. The easiest method of finding the Host ID is to use the axhostid utility. This utility is included with the license server files. If you do not already have this utility, you can use the following command:
Windows: ipconfig /all Solaris: hostid Linux: ifconfig eth0 On Windows and Linux, the Host ID is the MAC address (sometimes listed as a physical address or as “hwaddr”) of the machine’s primary Ethernet adapter. On Windows, it’s the first one listed and on Linux it is called eth0. For Solaris, the hostid is used.

Please contact the Vistasource Licensing team at license@vistasource.com to receive your redundant server license, providing the three MAC addresses or Host Id’s you located in Section 2.

Installing your License Managers in a redundant server configuration is very similar to a single-server installation – in fact, the main difference is that it is repeated three times. Please follow the instructions below to complete your installations. Before installing, make sure you’ve received your 3-server license file (as described in Section 3).

For a redundant server configuration, the License server software must reside on the same path on all three server machines. This means a) that all three servers must be members of the same operating system families - Unix/Linux or Windows, and b) that when you carry out your three installations, you choose the same path each time.
For most Windows users, any path is fine, such as C: Applixware, but if your three machines have different primary drive letters, you will need to find or create an installation path that exists on all three machines. Be sure to remember what this path is so that you can specify it during each installation.
Most Unix and Linux users install into /opt/applixware, but any path is fine.

1. Create a directory to put the license manager files. Make sure this path is available and empty on all three of your license server machines. Make a note of it so that you can be certain to use exactly the same installation path on your secondary and tertiary server installations. Example: C:Applixware

2. Copy the license manager files into this directory. These files are:

• lmgrd.exe • vistasrc.exe • axhostid.exe • lmtools.exe • lmutil.exe • lmstat.exe • axlicensedat (issued by Licensing)

3. Edit the axlicensedat file SERVER lines by changing ‘this_host’ to the proper hostnames for the three MACS, For example, the license file you receive will show: SERVER this_host 005056b8656c 27000 SERVER this_host 005056b877ca 27000 SERVER this_host 005056b85526 27000 VENDOR vistasrc FEATURE *office vistasrc 6.0 1-dec-0 5 SIGN=BF2192C82D16

Assuming your three machines are called serv1, serv2 and serv3 the license file edit would be: SERVER serv1 005056b8656c 27000 SERVER serv2 005056b877ca 27000 SERVER serv3 005056b85526 27000 VENDOR vistasrc FEATURE *office vistasrc 6.0 1-dec-0 5 SIGN=BF2192C82D16

Repeat these 3 steps on your secondary license server. Then, repeat them on your tertiary license server.

1. Create a directory to put the license manager files. Make sure this path is available and empty on all three of your license server machines. Make a note of it so that you can be certain to use exactly the same installation path on your secondary and tertiary server installations. Example: /opt/applixware

2. Copy the license manager files into this directory. These files are:

• axnlmgrd • vistasrc • axhostid • lmtools • lmdown • lmstat • axlicensedat (issued by Licensing)

3. Edit the axlicensedat file SERVER lines by changing ‘this_host’ to the proper hostnames for the three MACS, For example, the license file you receive will show: SERVER this_host 005056b8656c 27000 SERVER this_host 005056b877ca 27000 SERVER this_host 005056b85526 27000 VENDOR vistasrc FEATURE *office vistasrc 6.0 1-dec-0 5 SIGN=BF2192C82D16

Assuming your three machines are called serv1, serv2 and serv3 the license file edit would be: SERVER serv1 005056b8656c 27000 SERVER serv2 005056b877ca 27000 SERVER serv3 005056b85526 27000 VENDOR vistasrc FEATURE *office vistasrc 6.0 1-dec-0 5 SIGN=BF2192C82D16

Repeat these 3 steps on your secondary license server. Then, repeat them on your tertiary license server.

To bring up the three license managers, use the LMTOOLS.exe utility located in the folder where you put the license server files. Follow these steps on each machine, one after the other: 1. Launch LMTOOLS and click on the Config Services tab – create a service for the Applixware License using the following settings: Service name: Applixware Path to the lmgrd file: C:applixwarelmgrd.exe Path to the license file: C:applixwareaxlicensedat Path to the debug log file : C:applixwareaxnlm.log Toggle on ‘Start Server at Power up’ Toggle on ‘Use Services’

Click on ‘Save Service’ when done.

2. Click on the Service/License File tab. Make sure that “Configuration using Services” is checked and that the service highlighted is ‘Applixware’. Also, toggle on ‘ LMTOOLS Ignores License File Path Environment Variables’. 3. Click on the Start/Stop/Reread tab and choose “Start Server”. 4. Repeat steps on the secondary server. 5. Repeat steps on the tertiary server. Wait for the license manager daemons on the three machines to synchronize with each other. This may take a few minutes. After about 5 minutes you can query the license server status using LMTOOLS from any of the three machines. Click on the “Server Status” tab in LMTOOLS and click “Perform Status Enquiry”. This command should report that the license server is up, along with some other details. To make sure the license manager is running correctly on all nodes, you may repeat the above status check on your secondary and tertiary nodes. Sample output from “Perform Status enquiry”: [Detecting lmgrd processes…] License server status: 27000@serv1, 27000@serv2, 27000@serv3 License files on serv1: C:applixwareaxlicensedat serv1: license server UP (MASTER) v11.9 serv2: license server UP v11.9 serv3: license server UP v11.9

If, for some reason, the license manager daemons do not connect, take the daemons down on each machine on the Start/Stop/Reread tab in LMTOOLS, and run the procedure over again. Network traffic may affect the synchronization, so it may require several attempts before a proper connection is established. Again, all three machines must connect for the license manager to begin serving keys. Once the daemons are up and connected on all three machines, only two machines are needed for a quorum; the loss of any one server will not cause any licenses to be revoked. However, the loss of any two servers will cause the license manager to shut down.

To bring up the three license managers interactively, login to each machine as a non-privileged user and run the following command:

/opt/applixware/axnlmgrd –c /opt/applixware/axlicensedat –l /tmp/axnlmlog &

1. Login to the primary (master) server, the first server listed in your axlicensedat file, as a non-privileged user, then type the following: /opt/applixware/axnlmgrd –c /opt/applixware/axlicensedat –l /tmp/axnlmlog &

2. Login to the second server listed in your axlicensedat file as a non-privileged user, then type the above command. 3. Login to the third server listed in your axlicensedat file as a non-privileged user, then type the above command. 4. To Confirming your Flexlm Status on any of the three machines, you can run:

/opt/applixware/lmstat –a