Fixing Vendor Ports in License Files

Updated September 16, 2022

Why fix vendor ports?

The vendor daemon port is by default a dynamic port that can change when the license serverA server is a computer system or software program that provi... undergoes a restart as a result of re-installing a license or just simply routine server maintenance. When running within a single network (e.g. on premises), this isn’t a problem. But if you want to use your licenses outside your local network, you’ll need to fix vendor ports so that firewalls don’t get in the way.

How do I fix my vendor ports?

Note: Before making any changes to the vendor ports, make sure you temporarily shut down the on-premises license server machine or the license manager and make sure there are no running jobs making use of the licenses.

To fix the vendor ports, follow the steps listed below:

1. Decide on your vendor ports.
   • We recommend that you choose a vendor port that is easy to remember, like a number ending with 0s. For example, you can choose to fix the vendor port to 27000 or 28000, as long as that port is open on your firewall/gateway and not being used by any other software application.
   • If you have more than 1 license file, you should fix the vendor port in all the license files. Otherwise, you will get an error when you restart the license server. You need to fix the vendor port in all the license files that are associated with the server.
2. Open your license files to edit as an administrator

For Windows Users

Open the license file in a text editor with admin privileges. For instance,

• Use the file explorer to navigate to My Computer > D:> Documents > license > license-file.txt (or wherever the license file lives).
• Now, once you locate your license file, right click and Run as administrator.

If you do not get the option of opening the document with admin rights, just open Notepad with admin rights and open the license file from there.

For Linux/Mac Users

1. Open Terminal.
2. Locate your license file where it is saved. For instance: cd Documents/license/
3. Open the license file in a text editor with admin privileges. For example, type vim my-license-file or open using your chosen text editor.
4. Add a vendor port if one is not already set. How you do this will depend on the license manager and application.

3. Add a vendor port if one is not already set. How you do this will depend on the license manager and application. Some common examples:

SERVER hostname xxxxxxxxxx 1055
VENDOR ansyslmd PORT=28000

HOST hostname xxxxxxxxxx 2765
ISV csci PORT=2760

4. Once the vendor port is fixed in the license file, Save and close the license file.
5. Verify that you’ve changed the file by re-opening the file and checking that your changes are there.
6. Once you verify the vendor port was fixed, restart the license server or the license manager.
7. Check the license log file to see if the vendor port is the one you fixed in the license file. The license log file will depend on the application. Some common log files:

You can also confirm the vendor port using license logs. For FLEXlm, look for lines like this:

00:00:00 (lmgrd) FlexNet Licensing (<license manager version>) started on <hostname>
00:00:00 (lmgrd) lmgrd tcp-port <license server port>
00:00:00 (lmgrd) Started <vendor daemon> (pid <pid>)
00:00:00 (lmgrd) <vendor daemon> using TCP-port <vendor port>

And for RLM, look for lines like this:

1/1 00:00 (rlm) License server started on <hostname>
1/1 00:00 (rlm) Using TCP/IP port <license server port>
1/1 00:00 (rlm) Starting ISV server <vendor daemon> on port <vendor port>

Next steps

Once you have fixed your vendor ports, you can then view the following topics for more information about license proxies:

• See License Proxy – IP Forwarding to learn how to set up a license proxy using IP forwarding mode on the Rescale Admin page. 
• See License Proxy – SSH Tunnel to learn how to set up a license proxy using SSH tunnel mode on the Rescale Admin page.