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Under the Hood - All things PDM and PLM

Access_granted_400_clr_14151In the Vault 2016 Workgroup and Professional editions, the licensing model has been enhanced to provide the ability to reserve a license in multiple ways.  Here are some instructions for reserving a license for Vault users.

How to reserve a license

  1. To reserve a network license, use Notepad (or a text editor that does not insert any formatting characters) and create a text file that contains the Reserve statement. The syntax of the Reserve statement is as follows:
    Important: All of the text in an Options file is case-sensitive.

RESERVE [number of licenses] [feature][type][name]

  • [number of licenses] is the number of licenses you want to reserve
  • [feature] specifies the application that you want to control. The feature can be found in the license file, right after the word INCREMENT.
  • [type] is either USER, HOST, GROUP, or INTERNET
    • USER is the user logon name
    • HOST is the client machine name
    • GROUP defines a group of users
    • INTERNET is the IP address of a client machine
  • [name] is the name of the user, host, or group
    Note: specified usernames have to be all lowercase.
  1. Save this file as adskflex.opt in the same folder as the FLEXlm license file. The default location of the license file is C:Program FilesAutodesk License ManagerLicense
  2. Stop and restart AdLM
    For the Options file to be read, you must stop and restart the network license server.

    1. Start the license management tools utility.
    2. Click Configuration Using Services.
    3. Click the Start/Stop/Reread tab, and click Stop Server, wait 20 seconds, and then click Start Server.
  3. To confirm that a license is reserved, select the Server Status tab in LMTOOLS, and choose Perform Status Enquiry. If everything is working correctly, the Enquiry display will show the reservation.

As an example, to reserve one Vault 2016 license for a user named Smith:

RESERVE 1 86563VLTM_2016_0F USER smith

One license is now reserved for smith. This means that if you have five licenses, only four will be available to the other users, because one seat is reserved for smith at all times.

Additional examples:

  • This Options file will reserve one license for a computer named diamond, regardless of the user that is logged on the that computer.RESERVE 1 86563VLTM_2016_0F HOST diamond
  • This Options file will reserve three licenses for a GROUP named acad, and the members of the GROUP are smith, jones, and Administrator.GROUP acad smith jones Administrator
    RESERVE 3 86563VLTM_2016_0F acad

    Note: When reserving a license for Administrator, be aware that Administrator begins with an upper case A on Microsoft Windows operating systems.
  • This Options file will reserve one license for the computer that has an IP address of 231.172.17.156 regardless of the user that is logged on to the computer.RESERVE 1 86563VLTM_2016 INTERNET 231.172.17.156

Update the Vault Server

  1. On ADMS Server STOP IIS and navigate to
    C:Program FilesAutodeskADMS Professional 2016ServerWebServicesFilestore
  2. Open web.config and look for “licensing” section
  3. Add cascade=”False”(case sensitive) in front of resourcePath key.

    <licensing cascade=”False” resourcePath=”C:Program FilesAutodeskADMS Professional 2016ServerVaultScriptsen-US” errorLog=”C:ProgramDataAutodeskVaultServerFileStorelicensingLog.txt” locale=”en-US” lmConfigFile=”C:Program FilesAutodeskADMS Professional 2016LICPATH.LIC” />
  4. Save the file and START IIS.

– Irvin Hayes Jr., Product Manager

Irvin Hayes Jr.

Irvin is a Product Manager on the Autodesk Vault team based in Novi, Michigan. He helps partners, consulting and sales develop Vault deployment plans in enterprise environments and system requirements. You can find multiple classes Irvin has presented at Autodesk University, (au.autodesk.com) on a wide range of Vault topics. Irvin is a technology geek and loves sharing with the community on Twitter (@ihayesjr) and Flipboard Magazine. Disclaimer If you need an official Autodesk company response or a contact for press-related activities please contact Autodesk Public Relations. The posts on this blog are the authors' own personal opinions and do not represent their employer's view in any way. In addition, their thoughts and opinions often change, and as a weblog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point-in-time snapshot you should not consider out-of-date posts to reflect their current thoughts and opinions.

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  1. AvatarDavid Ponka

    Thanks Irvin. Great info in this post!

  2. AvatarDavid Ponka

    I notice that the first (and third) example don’t include a [type] in the RESERVE statement but the second and third example includes HOST and INTERNET respectively.
    Should the first example read as written or should it read “RESERVE 1 86563VLTM_2016_0F USER smith”

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