IBM Support

Licenses pulled from the wrong server with Rational Synergy or Rational Change

Troubleshooting


Problem

When using multiple license servers you can get a floating license from any license server with IBM Rational Change and IBM Rational Synergy.

Symptom

When you look in the license log provide by the FlexLM server you will notice that licenses are being granted to users from multiple servers.

Cause

When a license is requested the license server looks in the .flexlmrc to find a license server. If there are no licenses available FlexLM looks for any other server and when it finds one it gets a license and then updates the .flexlmrc file with the details of the server. Which ever server was last used becomes the first server to be used for the next request. So FlexLM will continually update the .flexlmrc file.

The .flexlmrc file is created in the users $HOME when a license is checked out. For Rational Change and Rational Synergy this is always the ccm_root user. It is not the Flex user nor the backend session user or the end user. It is the owner of the Change process and this is ccm_root.

Environment

This is seen where you have multiple license servers installed and you are using floating license types.

Diagnosing The Problem

The license server information is stored in $CCM_HOME\etc\license_data.txt file.

The format for the license server entry is 19353@<host_name>.

19353 = port on which license server is running.

host_name is the host on which the License server is installed.

  • Ensure that license_data.txt file is updated with the correct information of the License server.
  • Check for TELELOGIC_LICENSE_FILE or LM_LICENSE_FILE variable if set on the machine and is pointing to the correct license server.
  • When the licenses on one server are all allocated FlexLM will look for the next available license server and use that.
  • Then the .flexlmrc file will be updates.

Resolving The Problem

FlexLM is trying it's best to satisfy all license requests so it looks for a license in all it's known license servers. This is the mechanism which is employed to provide redundancy in license servers. That is you have multiple servers and should Flex not be able to get a license from one server it goes to the next server.

The following options can help resolve the issue:

  • Put all your licenses onto one server.

    You could then use the additional servers as redundant servers. See technote 1394388: How a redundant license server setup works

    or

  • Edit the .flexlmrc file to have the preferred license server for your particular installation and set the file to be read-only so the preference cannot be changed.

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Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2018

UID

swg21421667