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How do I set up a local installation of GOLD Suite to communicate with a licence server running on another computer?

Solution

Note: GOLD 5.4 and later uses CSD software suite based licensing, and does not require a flexnet license server to be run. The following information therefore only applies to GOLD 5.3 and earlier.

 

Licensing for ​GOLD 5.3 and GOLD 5.2 uses a FlexNet licence server which controls a number of 'floating' licences, allowing you to run GOLD on any other computer once that computer's installation has requested and been granted permission by the FlexNet licence server. In order to get that permission the local installation of GOLD Suite needs to know

a) Where the licence server is running
b) Communicate with that licence server on the two ports that the licence server is using

 

How to tell your installation where the licence server is

The simplest method to tell your installation where the licence server is running is to copy the ccdc_licence.dat from the licence server's GOLD Suite installation to your local installation. The licence file contains a SERVER line that details the licence server and this is used by GOLD to work out where to request a licence from. The ccdc_licence.dat file should reside in the top installation directory of the GOLD Suite installation. Note that the licence server is not started on the local installation, the file is just used to identify the licence server's location.

An alternative is to set the environment variable CCDC_LICENSE_FILE to point to the location of this licence file, e.g. for a bash shell on linux:

export CCDC_LICENSE_FILE=/usr/local/my_licence_file

Another alternative is to set CCDC_LICENSE_FILE to be the port@host value of your licence server. Here the 'host' should be the hostname used in your SERVER licence file line, and the 'port' should be the main FlexNet licence server port, e.g.

export CCDC_LICENSE_FILE=15000@myserver

 

Ensuring communication is possible on the ports that the FlexNet licence server is using

When GOLD's FlexNet licence server is started, it will use two ports to communicate with incoming requests to run GOLD dockings. By default these are randomly assigned, but it is possible to specify specific ports to be used - see this support database entry for more details. Otherwise the ports used will be detailed in the server log file (the DOS command window output on Windows, or the GOLD/gold/licence.log file on linux).

In order to access the FlexNet licence server, you local installation must be allowed access to the licence server on those ports. If you have firewall policies in place then this may require those ports being opened up in order to access the FlexNet licence server from your local installation. In this case, specifying specific ports, as detailed in the support database entry detailed above, will help. We would generally recommend contacting your network administrators to ensure proper access on the required ports is set up.