Specifying a Server Hostid
If the license server is run with back-office support, the producer must specify a hostid in the back office during license server creation. The workflow for specifying a server hostid depends on whether a local license server or a CLS instance is used. In implementations with a local license server, you as the license server administrator are required to identify the hostid and communicate it to the producer. When using a CLS instance, the server hostid is based on the server instance ID (generated when the instance is created). During synchronization from the back office (which occurs based on synchronization policies or on-demand), the back office sends the hostid along with other information to the license server.
Instead of waiting for the synchronization to occur, you can also specify the license server’s hostid manually. It is vital that the hostid that you set on the local license server matches the hostid that is specified in the back office. If you change the hostid on the license server to a value that is different to that specified in the back office, any licenses already mapped to the license server that is locked to the old hostid in the back office will be orphaned.
Changing a Hostid
If you need to change the local license server’s hostid when it already has licenses mapped in the back office, it is best practice to return the license server in the back office. During the return operation, you can transfer the licenses to a different device; this can be the same machine with the desired hostid. After the transfer, wait for the license server to synchronize with the back office.
You can perform the steps above through the End-User Portal (see Returning a Device in the FlexNet Operations End-User Portal Help Library, available on the Revenera Product Documentation site).
Important Note When Changing a Hostid
You must delete the existing trusted storage before activating the licenses on the new license server. If the license server’s hostid is changed, the used counts and served device information tracked in the previous hostid are no longer available in the local license server.
Selecting a Hostid
Specifying a server hostid is optional. If no hostid is set, the license server looks up the hostids in the native DLL component of the local license server, in the order in which they are listed in the table in section Hostid Types. Alternatively, the producer can set the order in which a local license server looks up the hostid. See Specifying the Order of Hostid Types.
It is important to know that the Ethernet hostid might change, depending on the adapter that is in use. Consider the following scenario: A laptop plugged into a docking station uses the Ethernet address of the docking station; however, when it is disconnected from the docking station, the Ethernet address is no longer available. A wireless adapter also has an Ethernet address and this address is not available when either the wireless adapter is removed from the machine or when the wireless adapter is disabled, but still physically attached to the machine.
In cases as described above, it is advisable to specify the hostid manually to ensure continuous operation.
Manually Specifying a Hostid
You can specify the server hostid (a value/type pair) in one of the following ways:
| • | Using the FlexNet License Server Administrator using the following option: |
-hostid -setactive hostIdValue hostIdType
See the table in section Using the FlexNet License Server Administrator Command-line Tool.
| • | Using the FlexNet License Server Manager—see “License Server Properties View” in the FlexNet License Server Manager Guide. |
| • | Using the configuration files (depending on your platform): |
| • |
| • | configuration-local.yaml, setting active-hostid (when using systemd on Linux)—see Edit “local-configuration.yaml” (Linux). |
Important:You can only set the hostid using a configuration file if no hostid has yet been specified for the license server. Once a hostid has been set, it can only be changed using the FlexNet License Server Administrator or the FlexNet License Server Manager.
Important:If a server hostid has been set manually, the server.hostType.order and licensing.enableBuiltinHostId properties (if set) are ignored.
Specifying the Order of Hostid Types
The producer can specify the order in which the local license server picks the hostid type, using the property server.hostType.order in producer-settings.xml. For more information about this property, see Reference: License Server Policy Settings, entry server.hostType.order.
Automatically Picking the Built-In Ethernet Address
The producer can configure the local license server to pick the built-in Ethernet address as hostid, using the property licensing.enableBuiltinHostId in producer-settings.xml. For more information about this property, see Reference: License Server Policy Settings, entry licensing.enableBuiltinHostId.
Limitations
In the following scenarios, setting the built-in Ethernet address as hostid using licensing.enableBuiltinHostId is likely to fail:
| • | If a user’s machine is set to use a randomized wireless MAC address. |
| • | If the option to automatically disable the wireless network connection when an Ethernet cable is connected is enabled. |
Therefore, if the Ethernet address is to be used as hostid, the relevant configurations must be disabled on the user’s machine.
Deleting the Selected Built-in Hostid
If licensing.enableBuiltinHostId is enabled (true), the first built-in Ethernet address is selected as hostid. However, in the scenarios mentioned under “Limitations”, above, the built-in Ethernet address might change, because the order of hostids is dynamic and changes depending on new built-in hostids becoming available or being removed.
To retain a stable built-in hostid across multiple launches of the license server, the server stores the selected built-in hostid in its database and fetches this hostid for each launch, instead of getting it from the dynamic hostid list.
If, at a later point in time, you no longer want to use the built-in hostid stored in the database, you can call the new REST endpoint /hostids/selectedbuiltin and delete the selected built-in hostid from the database. This forces the license server to fetch the first built-in hostid from the dynamic hostid list, instead of retrieving it from its database.
To delete the selected built-in hostid
Call the JSON REST endpoint http://licenseServerHostName/api/1.0/hostids/selectedbuiltin using DELETE.
For a successful DELETE, the status code 200 is returned, but no response is provided.