[862] in Release_7.7_team
SGI link to AFS for FlexLM node-locked software
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (alexp@MIT.EDU)
Thu Feb 13 12:56:48 1997
From: alexp@MIT.EDU
To: release-team@MIT.EDU
Cc: alexp@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 12:56:43 EST
Hi,
An issue has come up where I think it would be quite helpful to have a link
in the SGI release to some place in AFS. Some SGI-supplied software
(specifically the MPEG and Cinepak video conversion utilities) are only
available with FlexLM node-locked licenses.
This requires a key file /var/flexlm/license.dat containing the "magic
key". SGI has been willing in some cases (including this one) to give
us a key that will work for all machines, making this a lot more
reasonable to set up in our environment. They may also be willing to
give us other "universal keys", to be placed in the same file, for
other applications.
While it is possible to override this key file location with an
environment variable, the software is already installed in the release
and a locker would have to be set up just for the license key file
which seems to me to not be worth the bother.
We are already doing something similar with SGI NetLS licensed
software (a "pointer file" with the license server host name is at
/var/ncs/glb-site.txt, though that example actually uses a floating
license manager- the "hard wired" data file just points to the server
hostname).
Note- although we could in principle link the flexlm directory itself,
it's probably not a good idea because some software I installed for Julie
Dorsey has a key file /var/flexlm/aw.dat that should stay in place. To
the best of my knowledge there is no other use of anything in /var/flexlm
on our machines.
Let me know what you think.
Alex
