Managing License Servers in a Three-Server Redundant Configuration

Using the lmstat Utility

The output message generated by the lmstat utility identifies which license server is the master. In the following example lmstat output, the secondary license server is the master.

[Detecting lmgrd processes...]

License server status: 30000@RMD-PRIMARY,30000@RMD-SECONDARY,

30000@RMD-TERTIARY

License file(s) on RMD-PRIMARY: C:\server\3.lic:

RMD-PRIMARY: license server UP v11.4

RMD-SECONDARY: license server UP (MASTER) v11.4

RMD-TERTIARY: license server UP v11.4

Starting and Stopping License Servers

To start the entire system, you must start each license server manager (lmadmin or lmgrd). Generally, it is good practice to start the primary license server before the secondary or tertiary license server. This allows the primary license server to become the master before the others start. If you start the secondary and tertiary before the primary, then the secondary will establish itself as master.

If you do not set the PRIMARY_IS_MASTER keyword for the primary license server, then the order in which you start the license servers is important. If you do not set this property, when you start the primary license server after the secondary license server control will not transfer to the primary license server. By setting the PRIMARY_IS_MASTER keyword, you ensure that when the primary license server is running, it is always the master.

In three-server scenarios, a system administrator may wish to shut down one of the servers to perform maintenance on it, while the other two servers maintain a quorum and continue to serve licenses. Previously, shutting down a license server in a triad through lmdown (or lmtools) would shut down the entire triad. Now, a system admin can run lmdown -c 3server-license.lic from one of the machines in the triad. lmdown will read the 3-server license file and provide a prompt asking which of the three listed servers to shut down.

Running the License Server Manager as a Service on Windows

There are no dependencies or known issues related to running the license server manager as a service in this configuration.

Logging and the Debug Log

When using three-server redundancy, the master records information to its local debug log and report log (and the Windows event log if this is configured). If this system fails, another license server becomes the master and records information to its local debug log and report log. Subsequently, there may be different versions of the debug log and report log on the primary and secondary license server which each contains different information.